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Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

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211–220 of 859 posts

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#211
post #11

Oh, I can just imagine how the process went at MS: * Exec A: Social things are Good (coming to the conclusion about 10 years too late) * Exec B: Shall we create our own Google+? * Exec C: No, that didn't turn out that well for Google. Let's buy something existing. * Exec B: Ok, I've Googled a list of top 10 social networking sites for sale, and ordered them by list price, but really we'll need to come up with a strat…

Week's top jobless people will now feature on the Windows blue screen.

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#212
This is huge.

As an ex-Microsoft, I really don't understand that move. It doesn't make any sense. If the goal is to compete with the like of Facebook, I don't think it'll work as Linkedin is a business network. It makes me want to sell my stocks (-3.63% pre-market).

If I were MS I would have bought slack to replace both Sharepoint and Yammer.

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#213
post #3

Skype, Nokia, Minecraft, LinkedIn. Also Yahoo, almost, at one point. Best of luck to Microsoft with its latest acquisition. It doesn't look that sensible though.

Skype is one of the more regrettable acquisitions. Linux support has been deplorable ever since.

At least it does work. Which of course Skype for Business completely doesn't, even in browsers (on Linux). Even then buying a Skype for Business account on Windows it's the most confusing mess as they assume that you're buying the full Office 365 suite and want to take over your email sending. Which contains this massive admin section that's basically empty and doesn't make much sense. So then you end up with some terrible user@blah.microsoftonline.com account which unless you pay for more than the basic package isn't an email address at all. So people still have to manually send you the link for any meeting that you are a part of. Then you have to do a real hunt to find the download for Skype for Business - cause they all assume you just bought the whole Office 365.

I also can't connect to any Skype for Business account via Skype on Linux - just for messaging. That does work for some people for my Skype account on Windows to connect to Skype for Business but half the people don't get my contact requests or they are never shown online.

Of course then there's Slack. Slack works everywhere. On top of that Slack (non-video) calls work almost everywhere except for the Firefox and Desktop apps on Linux.

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#214
post #185
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would attract truly unprecedented levels of hostility and a declaration of war by segments of the Linux community.

Probably. On the other hand, Redhat kind of pulled up the drawbridge and focused on parts of the market that don't care so much with the RHEL / Fedora change. Of the major Linux distributions, I think Redhat is the one whose userbase would be least likely to be upset. A few years back it'd have been totally unthinkable, but today, given that MSFT has surprised repeatedly with a more friendly approach towards the open…

Red Hat pulled back how?

As for buttering any Linux distribution, I think Microsoft has focused traditionally on SUSE (even announced an "alliance" back in '11).

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#215
post #30
post #4

Holy fuck that is a lot of money. How on earth is LinkedIn worth anywhere near that?!

Well they did do $3 billion in revenue last year. http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=LNKD+Income+Statement&annual

With a $-166 million Net Income.

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#216

I'm surprised by the amount of negativity about the deal here on HN. It seems like an excellent match. I could see LinkedIn as an asset for Microsoft anywhere in the realms of work collaboration and HR. No other social network besides LinkedIn comes close to complimenting MicroSoft's wheelhouse of enterprise utility.

Indeed. And even on the "buy a social network rather than build one", this is a great choice. Whether they like it or not, pretty much everyone already has LinkedIn.

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like the forced Win10 updates, spyware, ads directly in the OS which you paid for, ...?

You not liking it doesn't make it a poor business strategy.

I went to a store once, and their cash registers were down because a Windows update was forced on them. One was working, 2 weren't. A store manager was on the phone with some tech support guy and was not happy.

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#218
post #68

just my own prediction.. msft will attempt to replatform the entire stack onto Azure, making heavy use of their Azure platform services as a way to show how scalable they are (sort of the same play they made with hotmail decades ago).

That's a very safe and sure bet. Why it would go any other way would be really puzzling.

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#219
post #212

This is huge. As an ex-Microsoft, I really don't understand that move. It doesn't make any sense. If the goal is to compete with the like of Facebook, I don't think it'll work as Linkedin is a business network. It makes me want to sell my stocks (-3.63% pre-market). If I were MS I would have bought slack to replace both Sharepoint and Yammer.

Why is having a social network always just about competing with Facebook? Microsoft is very much in the business space, this is a business focused social network. Not a bad place to work on your business brand.

The word is they almost bought Slack, but decided to heavily invest into Lync instead, turning it into Skype for Business and such.

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#220

"Your career doesn't seem to respond anymore. Do you want to restart it now?"

* You haven't changed jobs in 3 years, sending out 40 applications for you. You are welcome. - Same team that did Windows 10 autoupdate

"Sent your resignation letter" seems like the more appropriate action.
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