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Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

news.microsoft.com

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Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#311

Post by MzHN »

krmmalik wrote: post #174
nailer wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine it was more like: - Microsoft has the money - LinkedIn is the biggest thing in recruiting (I don't especially like it either, but it is). I wouldn't personally hire someone via recruiters or LinkedIn, but I would hire someone via a recomendation from a contact I maintain on LinkedIn. - Microsoft makes business tools - There's a bunch of interesting opportunities for intrgating Dynamics, Yammer, and other MS…

>Actually looking forward to MS's UX folk cleaning up LinkedIn. This. This the only reason im excited about the acquisition. LinkedIn UX is awful. What makes me nervous though, is some things could get worse. (skype has gone downhill ever since the acquisition i feel).

Skype has gone downhill ever since their first acquisition, and they've been acquired at least three times already.

If anything, MS is starting to slowly take it to a better direction, even though it is nowhere near the ideology of the original Skype.

I believe that LinkedIn will end up being a similar case, where it will continue to suck, but you'll see some slow progress eventually.

EDIT: As pointed out, LinkedIn will likely continue operating independently, as did Skype, which explains the slow progress.

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#313

Post by _hao »

threeseed wrote: post #195
ravivyas wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, plus Slideshare can be a massive boost to Powerpoint.

Actually there hasn't been enough talk about the companies LinkedIn acquired. Connectifier - recruiting intelligence Lynda - online learning FlipTop - predictive marketing RunHop - personalised content Refresh.io - relationship content surfacing These could be huge additions to Azure, Office 365, Bing, Cortana etc.

As far as I know, Microsoft owns Pluralsight. They also recently bought Digital Tutors. Perhaps another big merge will happen between Pluralsight and Lynda.

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#314

Post by serg_chernata »

krmmalik wrote: post #174
nailer wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine it was more like: - Microsoft has the money - LinkedIn is the biggest thing in recruiting (I don't especially like it either, but it is). I wouldn't personally hire someone via recruiters or LinkedIn, but I would hire someone via a recomendation from a contact I maintain on LinkedIn. - Microsoft makes business tools - There's a bunch of interesting opportunities for intrgating Dynamics, Yammer, and other MS…

>Actually looking forward to MS's UX folk cleaning up LinkedIn. This. This the only reason im excited about the acquisition. LinkedIn UX is awful. What makes me nervous though, is some things could get worse. (skype has gone downhill ever since the acquisition i feel).

Supposedly, they also said that LinkedIn will continue to operate independently.

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#315

Post by Sylos »

argonaut wrote: post #180
tajen wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forced Windows 10 upgrade became a meme on 9gag ("Went to the toilets and saw this", etc). I learnt about the story over there before it was on HN. I'm not saying 9gag is representative, but I counter the "no-one noticed the forced upgrades". Even my parents did. Everyone noticed.

Most people have not heard of 9gag. Most adults probably don't really know what a meme is yet either (they've probably seen a few, just don't really get it yet).

His point was that even on 9GAG, which does not have a tech-focused community, this is a central talking point, so it's not just the tech-crowd which is pissed off about this.

Sure, 9GAGgers are still at least capable of operating a computer or smartphone, but if you move even further down in tech-capabilities, it also becomes quite unlikely that those people will buy something from Microsoft to begin with.

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#316

Post by beagle3 »

simonswords82 wrote: post #152
gloves wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unsure if you're being serious... don't need to look much further than Windows 10 auto update to see how much Microsoft care...

Microsoft employs fifty thousand engineers. A group of them fucked up with that Windows 10 debacle. I reckon on the whole Microsoft very much do care about their reputation.

You've made this comment more than once on this thread. Microsoft employs many people, but it is hierarchily managed.

Things like the Windows 10 dark patterns might happen, but once the users complain (and users have been complaining since the day win 10 was out, when the patterns weren't nearly as dark), someone with veto power gets involved.

This was definitely done with the approval - and I guess blessing and even direction of nadella himself.

I didn't buy the "new Microsoft" for a second.

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#317

Post by galfarragem »

I personally don't like LinkedIn itself but I recognise that it fills an huge market need. Probably that's why LinkedIn survived to so many bad decisions and was able to retain users.

Once Microsoft is walking the enterprise path, the acquisition looks like a logical investment. (logical != profitable)

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#318

Post by garyclarke27 »

_yosefk wrote: post #237
argonaut wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I had LinkedIn on my list of undervalued tech stocks, and I think this bears that out. LinkedIn has absolutely no competition. LinkedIn is the world's biggest, virtually-complete graph of most enterprise organizational charts / structures. That alone will be valuable for Microsoft's enterprise business.

MS could, erm, look up those org charts on linkedin.com for $0 (indeed very useful at times.) What value is added by buying LinkedIn for $26G? How owning LinkedIn is going to add $1-1.5B/year (assuming eventually you want a P/E between, I dunno, 15 and 25), to MS's revenue? (I'm sure someone at MS has an answer to this, it's just that they haven't been tremendously successful in the past with their big acquisitions;…

Reminds me of the joke - MS Executive buys Skype for $8bn - didn't anyone tell him you can download it for free?

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#320

Post by ryanSrich »

nailer wrote: post #80
ivoras wrote: 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…

I imagine it was more like: - Microsoft has the money - LinkedIn is the biggest thing in recruiting (I don't especially like it either, but it is). I wouldn't personally hire someone via recruiters or LinkedIn, but I would hire someone via a recomendation from a contact I maintain on LinkedIn. - Microsoft makes business tools - There's a bunch of interesting opportunities for intrgating Dynamics, Yammer, and other MS…

Not just the UX but all aspects of brand and design. LinkedIn is hideous, difficult to use, buggy, and creepy. If MSFT can fix a few of those it'll be a win. If not it's hard to see the platform living another 5 years.
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