This article was published on August 24, 2011

Microsoft continues China push as MSN partners with Renren on instant messaging


Microsoft continues China push as MSN partners with Renren on instant messaging

MSN, Microsoft’s joint venture in instant messaging, has entered into an agreement with Chinese social-networking website Renren to unify the login infrastructure for both websites and allow the cross-sharing of users and messages, according to a report by Reuters.

Renren CEO Liu Jian said, “Renren’s alliance with MSN network is in the spirit of a win-win situation.” The deal will see far-reaching integration between the two services, allowing both networks to benefit from the others’ size and geographical reach.

Microsoft has been attempting to make a place for itself in the Chinese online market recently with partnerships in online search and enterprise-level cloud-computing, in an attempt to capitalize on its chief rival Google’s exit from the Chinese market. Home to over 1.3 billion people, China has around 480 million Internet users. For Microsoft, this represents a large and mostly untapped market and it seems fully intent on establishing itself in it.

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