On Monday, Microsoft announced it will definitevly be acquiring LinkedIn for $196 a share, totalling $26.2 billion to be payed in cash. While the transaction has been approved from both parties, it will not be final until it has undergone regulatory approvals.
LinkedIn investors profited nicely as shares jumped up 64 percent from $131.08 on Friday before close.
From the outside, LinkedIn will operate the same as did it before the acquisition. CEO Jeff Weiner will run LinkedIn, while reporting to Satya Nadella. LinkedIn will remain the company that it is, but will undergo changes to align with Microsoft’s business model.
Microsoft has been invested solely in software, and a little bit in hardware. The company hopes with LinkedIn, it can leverage the platform to gain more social reach as well as professional content being published and shared. Microsoft will be able to reach out to new customers that are already on LinkedIn, as well as find new ones.
With key information and insight about users from LinkedIn, Microsoft intends to better the CRM experience for consumers.
I wonder if Twitter will be the next social platform to be snatched up by a software company. With a giant user base of over 300 million active users, it could prove useful to companies attempting to expand their social reach. Companies such as Salesforce maybe?
Users are not too happy that Microsoft buys LinkedIn
The purchase announcement came as a surprise to many, and caused a wave of criticism. Many feared for the future of LinkedIn, following previous failed partnerships Microsoft tried to create.
Raj K. Mitra had the following to say as to why Microsoft’s acquisition could be a flop. “In 2007, after missing the search engine bus to Google, Microsoft bought aQuantive, an online ad company, for $6.3 billion; five years later, it wrote off $6.2 billion on the acquisition. Similarly, after missing the mobile OS war to Google and Apple, Microsoft bought Nokia’s mobile unit in 2014 for $9.5 billion, before writing off $7.5 billion on the purchase a year later. In hindsight, the LinkedIn acquisition could be a story of another missed bus – social networking.”
I have seen quite a reinforcement coming from social media, reading disappointed statuses and funny memes predicting the future sinking of the social network business . I would have to say I’m inclined to believe that Mitra could be right in this case.