Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

According to reports in the morning of December 9, Beijing time, the Biden government of the United States accused social media giant Meta platform Inc., in court on Thursday local time, of trying to gain dominance of the meta-universe market through mergers and acquisitions. On the same day, the antitrust lawsuit of the US government preventing Facebook's parent company from acquiring virtual reality software maker "Within" officially began its trial.

In July this year, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) formally filed an antitrust lawsuit in court. The agency alleges that Meta bought Within to monopolize the market in virtual reality fitness software. FTC asked the court to issue an injunction to block the acquisition.

In his opening statement on Thursday, FTC lawyer Abby Dennis said that the acquisition of Within is part of an ambitious plan behind Meta to acquire as many virtual reality users as possible through mergers and acquisitions of third-party products, including Within's well-known virtual reality fitness software Supernatural.

Dennis said the acquisition will increase Meta's existing virtual reality software users. Among them, these users are mainly young people and men, who are more interested in virtual reality games.

Dennis mentioned a plan made by Meta in early 2021 to use its own resources and capabilities to develop its own virtual reality fitness software, as Meta had always thought before buying Within.

According to Dennis, the name of the Meta project is "Operation Cake". In 2019, Meta acquired a rhythm game software that the company plans to work with Peloton, a maker of online fitness equipment, to transform the software into a virtual reality fitness tool.

Dennis quoted an email from Zuckerberg, chief executive of Meta. Zuckerberg said in an email that he is very optimistic about the market for virtual reality fitness software and that the cooperation with Peloton will be very satisfactory.

In court, lawyers for Meta and Within said FTC was confused in defining the relevant software market. In the market, the two companies compete with a wide variety of fitness software, not just virtual reality fitness software.

Meta, a lawyer, said the plan to develop its own fitness software has been making progress and has gone beyond the development stage of low-level "brainstorming". The defense lawyer also said that FTC underestimated the competitiveness of its own definition of fitness software market, such as Apple, Google and other companies are likely to enter this market.

FTC has long accused Meta of weakening market competition by acquiring small and medium-sized potential competitors. This trial will be a test of FTC's courage to maintain market fairness (except this time the market is focused on the emerging VR / AR software).

In addition to Within's merger and acquisition, FTC has another antitrust lawsuit against Meta. In 2020, FTC filed a lawsuit asking the court to cancel Meta's past two acquisitions of social tools (Instagram and WhatsApp). It should be noted that both software were in an emerging market at the time of the merger.

If FTC wins this antitrust lawsuit, it will weaken Meta's ability to integrate in virtual reality and augmented reality markets. Zuckerberg, the head of Meta, is very optimistic about the meta-universe concept and these two markets, and believes that it will become the next generation of computing platform.

If the court blocks Meta from making mergers and acquisitions in meta-universe, the company will face more pressure to develop its own products while losing the benefits of mergers and acquisitions-such as revenue, development talent, data, control, etc.

Within, the developer of Supernatural, advertises that Supernatural has expert coaches and is a complete fitness service that allows users to perform a variety of sports with music in scenic spots.

At present, Supernatural software can only be used on Quest, a virtual reality device launched by Meta. This device can provide immersive digital visual and auditory experience. IDC, an American technology market research company, predicts that Quest will gain 90% of the global virtual reality equipment market in the future.

At present, there are more than 400 software in Quest's software store, most of which are developed by external developers, but the most popular software in the store, "Beat Saber", is developed by Meta. This is exactly what Meta is preparing to work with Peloton to transform into an internal product of fitness software.

In October 2021, Meta and Within struck a deal, and the day before the deal was announced, the company announced that it would change its name from Facebook to Meta, reflecting Zuckerberg's determination to bet heavily on the metamosmos market.

It is reported that Zuckerberg will appear in court as a witness in the trial, and other possible witnesses include Andrew Bosworth, chief technology officer of Within CEO Chris Milk,Meta, who is the head of Meta's reality Lab, which is in charge of meta-universe.

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