Sources speaking with Recode say Google has dropped plans to bid for Twitter, despite being considered the most likely buyer. Other sources mention the same for Apple: The iPhone maker isn’t likely to shell out roughly $20 billion for a social communication company when it can benefit from that without owning it.
Another contender, Disney, is also said to be out, which leaves Microsoft and Salesforce as the possible buyers of Twitter, as well as Verizon. Of course, there aren’t any official comments from anywhere, but Recode does note that Salesforce “began no-commenting noisily with regard to possible interest in acquiring it a few weeks ago.”
With Google and Apple out of the picture, this reduces the possibility of a bid from Facebook, the report says.
Google’s move is rather interesting, because it makes “some sense” for the search giant to acquire Twitter, given its – so far – unsuccessful attempts around social. But, of course, this doesn’t mean that Google is giving up on social communication: It has recently taken a page out of Apple’s book with the launch of Duo and a messaging app called Allo, but it is too early to say whether these will be successful or not.
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