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Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

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Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#641

Post by criddell »

aioprisan wrote: post #546
criddell wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> LinkedIn is hideous, difficult to use, buggy, and creepy. If MSFT can fix a few of those it'll be a win. Have you seen Windows 10 yet?

While I'm a big Mac fan and moved to Apple products over 10 years ago, Windows 10 is the first alternative that I would actually consider using full-time now. I think the privacy concerns are valid and should be available to all, not just the pro/enterprise crowd.

The shittiest thing Microsoft has done with W10 is the way they handled upgrades. Nobody should be tricked into upgrading. Opting out should be easy and clear. The upgrade should never happen without the user affirmatively starting it. If the user has software already installed that will be disabled by the W10 upgrade, they should be asked to acknowledge that before the upgrade starts.

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#642

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

elcapitan wrote: post #20
yosefk wrote: 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.

Is Microsoft becoming the official "bad bank" for tech investments?

It's like Corel for B2B.

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#643

Post by Xyik »

I wish people would read company's quarterly performance reports before making claims about whether we're in a bubble and whether company x is worth y. LinkedIn generates a ton of revenue and is very arguably worth its valuation. Just because you don't use LinkedIn or SnapChat or whatever else has a ridiculous valuation these days doesn't mean its valuation is not justified in some way.

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#644

Post by marme »

_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;…

MS bought skype just to stop google from buying they. Google made a big for skype and MS swooped in and outbid them. They never had any real plans for skype they just dont want to allow google to gain near monopoly in the consumer VOIP market. Which seems strange for MS to care about since they were not in this sector previously but Ballmer just held such a huge grudge with google and did it out of spite. Really shows what kind of CEO Ballmer was and why MS is so much better off without him

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#645

Post by duderific »

hitlin37 wrote: post #556

so in the end, a recruiting problem is solved bya software company, now could be named as the big L. wondering what happened to all those people who studied Human Resource as a management branch and what are they doing now when whole recruiting thing is being run by bunch of sw engineers sitting in silicon valley and crunching big data.

You still need human beings at companies who do HR, at least at decent sized companies. Someone needs to set up the interviews, walk people around, be the recipient of questions about payroll, PTO etc., and that is work nobody else wants to do.

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#646

Post by ElijahLynn »

SuperKlaus wrote: post #626
ElijahLynn wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I am debating closing mine today.

You better hurry before Microsoft removes that "feature".

LOL, sounds like it won't be until the end of the year for the deal to have a chance to succeed, and only then will Microsoft get the LinkedIn keys. So I think I will wait until the deal has a better chance of closing.

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#647

Post by clapinton »

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).

Totally agree on the UX. Example: 99.8% of the openings I've seen on their job board in the past 4 months all redirect to an outside board, usually Indeed. Actually, I only remember finishing an application inside LI once, which begs the question: why aren't companies posting their jobs inside LI? It almost looks like they scrape posts from Indeed. Besides, one of the Premium features is "Featured Applicant: Move to the top of recruiters' applicant lists", which is basically worthless if no one actually applies through LI.

There are many holes in LI's UX which I'm hoping will get fixed after the purchase is complete. I just hope it doesn't break as Skype did (you're not the only one to feel that). Even though it's Microsoft, it's not Ballmer's MSFT anymore, so I'm hopeful. And if it does, there'll be a big gap for some other company to fill.

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#648

Post by hackaflocka »

ssharp wrote: post #635
dimino wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would be great , if you're right, because this is how we get to a place where we maintain our resumé in one place (LinkedIn) and don't have to play the whole "Please upload your resumé. Now please enter in all the details of your resumé." hellhole.

There is a Fortune 200 headquartered in my area that, by far, has the worst application process and software I've ever seen. Aside from REQUIRING you to type in information like your high school's address and your high school GPA, they also have pre-screening booby-traps which you may need to lie to get past (e.g. my wife was applying for an HR job there and they asked if she had a bachelor's degree in HR, which she…

Great story. It's a sure sign that a strong bureaucracy has set in when one sees this. It's common in government organizations, but becoming more common in non-government (especially large) organizations.

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#649

Post by shimon »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #631
dimino wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would be great , if you're right, because this is how we get to a place where we maintain our resumé in one place (LinkedIn) and don't have to play the whole "Please upload your resumé. Now please enter in all the details of your resumé." hellhole.

I get messages through LinkedIn asking for my resume. Also, why would it be great for a company to exclusively maintain your resume?

A few reasons:

- There's one widely accessible database where resumes can be found. Since many people want to be found by prospective employers, this gives them an obvious place to put it.

- The resume format can be standardized, so you can focus on meaningful differences instead of the cognitive challenges of extracting meaning from a heavily stylized document.

- There can be a commonly available API for exposing this information e.g. in job applications (see "Apply with LinkedIn", which does exist).

- Because it's a centralized database, it's more up-to-date with professional developments and changes of contact information.

Not to say that it has to be a single company, let alone a linkedin-style company, maintaining all that infrastructure. But there is definitely value to a standardized infrastructure, and a company like LinkedIn seems to be a pretty successful way to build that.

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#650

Post by spyckie2 »

I've read many complaints about how linkedin is a tool that has so much potential if it was just done right... and no one here is entertaining the possibility that MS is thinking the same way? I know MS has a bad track record for acquisitions but I think this one has a lot of potential.
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