by Angela Guess
Conner Forrest reports in TechRepublic, “On Monday, Microsoft announced that it will be purchasing LinkedIn, the social network for professionals, for $26.2 billion. The all-cash deal will bolster Microsoft’s social media presence among professionals and could potentially give LinkedIn more analytics resources. In the official press release announcing the acquisition, it was noted that LinkedIn will remain its own entity and CEO Jeff Weiner will stay at the helm. Weiner will report to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Despite the astronomical price, one of the most basic reasons for Microsoft’s pursuit of LinkedIn is to grow its appeal among business users. LinkedIn is the world’s biggest site for networking and job searches with roughly 400 million users, and Microsoft will get direct access to that audience and the data it is creating.”
Forrest goes on, “Speaking of data, LinkedIn stands to benefit from this deal as well. Microsoft’s press release, pointed out that LinkedIn has updated its mobile app to help ‘deliver better business insights,’ which it could continue do with Microsoft’s help. Of course, a big part of LinkedIn’s publishing platform was built around its acquisition of Pulse in 2013. And, in 2015, LinkedIn announced analytics for publishing to help brands and professionals better understand the reach of their posts. After Microsoft bought Yammer in 2012, it integrating a host of Yammer capabilities into Office 365 and we may see the same thing from the LinkedIn deal. In a letter written by Nadella to employees explaining the deal, he cited growth in ‘Office 365 commercial and Dynamics’ as one of the goals of the deal, as well as growth in cloud services.”
Photo credit: LinkedIn