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  3. When Microsoft bought task management app Wunderlist and mobile calendar Sunrise in 2015, it picked up two newcomers that were a

When Microsoft bought task management app Wunderlist and mobile calendar Sunrise in 2015, it picked up two newcomers that were a

admin2021-03-11  102
问题         When Microsoft bought task management app Wunderlist and mobile calendar Sunrise in 2015, it picked up two newcomers that were attracting considerable buzz in Silicon Valley.Microsoft’s own Of¬fice dominates the market for "productivity" software, but the start-ups represented a new wave of technology designed from the ground up for the smartphone world.
        Both apps, however, were later scrapped after Microsoft said it had used their best features in its own products.Their teams of engineers stayed on, making them two of the many "acqui-hires" that the biggest companies have used to feed their insatiable hunger for tech talent.
        To Microsoft’s critics, the fates of Wunderlist and Sunrise are examples of a remorseless drive by Big Tech to chew up any innovative companies that lie in their path."They bought the seedlings and closed them down, " complained Paul Arnold, a partner at San Francisco-based Switch Ventures, put¬ting an end to businesses that might one day turn into competitors.Microsoft declined to comment.
        Like other start-up investors, Mr.Arnold’s own business often depends on selling start-ups to lar¬ger tech companies, though he admits to mixed feelings about the result: "I think these things are good for me, if I put my selfish hat on.But are they good for the American economy? I don’t know."
        The US Federal Trade Commission says it wants to find the answer to that question.This week, it asked the five most valuable US tech companies for information about their many small acquisitions over the past decade.Although only a research project at this stage, the request has raised the pros¬pect of regulators wading into early-stage tech markets that until now have been beyond their reach.
        Given their combined market value of more than $5.5bn, rifling through such small deals— many of them much less prominent than Wunderlist and Sunrise—might seem beside the point.Between them, the five companies (Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Facebook) have spent an average of only $3.4bn a year on sub- $ lbn acquisitions over the past five years—a drop in the ocean compared with their massive financial reserves, and the more than $ 130bn of venture capital that was invested in the US last year.
        However, critics say that the big companies use such deals to buy their most threatening potential competitors before their businesses have a chance to gain momentum, in some cases as part of a "buy and kill" tactic to simply close them down.
Microsoft’s critics believe that the big tech companies tend to__________ .
选项 A、ignore public opinions
B、treat new tech talent unfairly
C、exaggerate their product quality
D、eliminate their potential competitors
答案D
解析 根据题干关键词Microsoft’s critics 和big tech companies 可定位到原文第三段第一句“To Microsoft’s critics, the fates of Wunderlist and Sunrise are examples of a remorseless drive by Big Tech to chew up any innovative companies that lie in their path”,对微软的批评者来说，Wunderlist和Sunrise的命运就是一个例子,说明了大科技公司无情地试图扼杀任何处在他们道路上的创新公司。D项“清除他们潜在的竞争者”与文章表述一致,故选D。A项“忽视了公众意见”、C项“夸大产品质量”,原文并未提及,故均排除。B项“不公正地对待新技术人才，原文之前说到保留并重用了工程师,所以并没有不公正对待人才,故B项错误。
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