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Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

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Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#441

Post by novaRom »

_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;…

> What value is added by buying LinkedIn for $26G?

1. Integrate Skype into LinkedIn 2. Add a shared chat screen (video group chat)

This will allow many Human Resources to perform interviews more efficiently (in return to subscription). I can imagine many other new attractive features MS could easily add (e.g. syntax highlighting in group chat).

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#442

Post by rrdharan »

NicoJuicy wrote: post #252
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…

Eum... What social network is really making money outside of ads and lots of it? Yes, LinkedIn and it's also the most "business minded" social network. So it seems an obvious (good) choice ( don't forget, MS also bought Yelp - which was also considered a 'business social network') There isn't any social network that has this much paying users.

You mean they bought Yammer. Yelp is still independent and publicly traded.

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#443

Post by martin-adams »

fecak wrote: post #255
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…

> 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. I'm a recruiter, and fully understand reluctance to use recruiters (expensive, not to mention a host of other reputation issues). I don't quite understand "I would't hire someone via...LinkedIn". 'Hire someone via LinkedIn' could mean a host of things. The most obvious w…

>> "I saw your profile on LinkedIn and I like what your company is doing, I'd like to get together and discuss the possibility of working with you"

I think this is my problem with LinkedIn, that conversation doesn't happen. I get connection requests and I'm left baffled to what their angle is. I literally scan the bio of the one connecting for the words 'recruiter' or 'business development' and then reject them. It's because I'm not looking to use LinkedIn for that reason.

Turns out it was this exact frustration that sparked the motivation to create a startup in my daily vlog.

Link for anyone interested: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGTowTy88dEKxrFibOimY...

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#444

Post by Zigurd »

Plusses: LinkedIn is distinctive among social networks. That's one reason Facebook hasn't killed LinkedIn, yet. Though I increasingly find my business contacts interact with me on Facebook rather than LinkedIn. A bigger plus may be that a business-oriented social network is strategically coherent for Microsoft.

Minuses: LinkedIn is relatively small. It's not that well-implemented. It has an oddball business model. It has no messaging component, and that's where social networking is going.

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#445

Post by marcosdumay »

knodi123 wrote: post #352
lucb1e wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This. This the only reason im excited about the acquisition. LinkedIn UX is awful. Yeah well they acquired Skype and see what a mess that became. Even Windows itself sometimes... I suppose it depends on which team gets the job?

> I suppose it depends on which team gets the job? I bet! The number of people in here that think a company with >118,000 employees is always going to make the same tech and design decisions is baffling.

That's because many decisions are caused by the environment, not the people. In the meaning that it's still the people doing them, but everybody on the same environment tend to choose similar things, and when in another environment, those same people tend to choose different things.

This is actually documented on management literature, with empirical studies and quantitative results.

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#447

Post by rqebmm »

lucb1e wrote: post #184
krmmalik wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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).

> This. This the only reason im excited about the acquisition. LinkedIn UX is awful. Yeah well they acquired Skype and see what a mess that became. Even Windows itself sometimes... I suppose it depends on which team gets the job?

Agreed. The LinkedIn UX is awful, but I'm not sure Microsoft are the people I'd want to address a UX issue.

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#448

Post by Silhouette »

partiallypro wrote: post #99
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…

Twitter is the cheapest of the big networks. LinkedIn is entrenched in its market, unlike most of the others (including Instagram, Snapchat, etc.) Twitter I think would be a good buy somewhere, but Jack and his team seem inept and they probably want a massive premium. When I first heard the news it made no sense; but after pondering, I think I know what they are trying to do, and it does makes sense. Also, LinkedIn w…

is really close to profit

This is the thing I find hard to understand about these big corporate acquisitions. What multiple of "really close to profit" makes a bigger number than $26B?

If it's a start-up with obvious potential but relatively early in its life, or an established business that is currently reinvesting revenues on a large scale to drive growth, I can understand not being concerned about the profits.

But this is LinkedIn. It's not like it's a new company. It's already dominant in its market, and I don't see obvious potential for spectacular growth within the same area. If it's not already making big profits, what makes it worth $26B to Microsoft?

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#449

Post by torgeek »

MzHN wrote: post #311
krmmalik wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 w…

didnt microsoft remove the p2p functionality and made skype highly centralized?

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#450

Post by CRConrad »

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).

Actually, to many adults who have heard of the word "meme" it may mean "an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture", the intellectual equivalent of a biological gene -- not the newfangled meaning that the kids have hijacked the word for, "one of those silly pictures with text on". (Funny, didn't we already have terms for that? Poster, postcard...?)

It was originally coined by Richard Dawkins (way back, before he went senile); perhaps in _The selfish gene_. HTH!

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