"Renren's alliance with MSN is a win-win situation. Both Renren and MSN users will enjoy the convenience and enhanced services brought by the cross-platform cooperation," said James Liu, chief operating officer of Renren.
As of today, MSN users will be able to sign in on Renren.com using MSN logins, but not vice versa. Renren told Campaign its user base of 124.2 million won't be able to return the favour as yet.
MSN China runs the online business for Microsoft in China. This is not Microsoft's first foray into the Chinese internet landscape. In November 2010, MSN China and Sina (Renren's bigger rival) agreed to share and export content between their respective microblogging, blogging, instant messaging, information portal and mobile services.
"MSN has always been very selective in choosing our partners in China to ensure we consistently deliver secure, reliable and innovative online services," said Jiarong Chen, deputy general manager of MSN China. He commented that the partnership means the two will "benefit from each other's competitive strengths and complementary user bases".
According to research firm Analysys International, Microsoft seems to be the bigger beneficiary, as the deal could ramp up the user base for MSN Messenger, which has 14 million registered users in the country.
In the last couple of months, Renren has also partnered with different corporations to enhance its social networking services. These partnerships include a 'social wedding' platform with Recruit, a Japanese HR and classified media group; a 'social gaming' platform with Popcap Games; and a 'social credit card' with China Merchants Bank.
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