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Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

news.microsoft.com

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Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#101

Post by zaroth »

Touche wrote: post #37
Eclyps wrote: post #17

Do many people use Yammer? The company that I'm with tried it a few years back and it just wasn't useful for us. I wonder if they will end up merging Yammer, or at least some Yammer features, into LinkedIn at some point.

It's essentially unchanged since they bought it. I think all they really did was put Yammer notifications in Outlook. I wouldn't be surprised if LinkedIn turns out the same way. They had to write off the Nokia deal (over 7 billion I believe), this might be the next one of those.

I think their ability to write-off most of the $26b in a couple years must be a defining feature of the whole transaction. I.e. "Oh well, at least the Fed is paying for half of it!"

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#102

Post by zzalpha »

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…

Well this is a content free comment... nice snark, though.

Edit: My apologies. Judging by the discussion here, I guess we expect high quality comments here at Redd... uhh Hacker News unless it's about Microsoft. My bad. Guess I didn't read that fine print...

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#103

Post by makecheck »

In addition to what others have said (what does it get Microsoft, etc.), how would this even be allowed? It would mean most recruiters going through Microsoft to get to candidates. I can just imagine how well that would go over at other tech companies: how can they be sure Microsoft isn’t getting “first crack” at people, etc. and does Microsoft then know which companies are about to lose employees?

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#104

Post by seren »

cjblomqvist wrote: post #60

A huge database which can be utilized for sales. Who to talk to with what profile, which kind of approach is likely to work, and so forth. A great opportunity for some data mining folks!

I am actually surprised there are no anti-trust kind of law that are kicking in. I guess this is just a case no one thought that would be an issue at some point (or is it really?).

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#105

Post by lloyd-christmas »

andylynchnz wrote: post #69
minimaxir wrote: post #12

Why would Microsoft release a major M&A announcement at 8:35 AM EST / 5:35 AM PST? It's not even the professional workday yet!

To get the news out without disrupting the markets - it's fairer to allow people to see news like this while the instrument is not trading.

As a prior equities trader, these were our year-makers if it happened during trading hours.

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#107

Post by oblio »

zimpenfish wrote: post #95
ebbv wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This just isn't true. There's nothing about LinkedIn that makes it any more indispensable than those sites or Monster.com or any other site popular with recruiters in the past. This is going to go down in history as one of the most overpriced, worst acquisitions of all time. LinkedIn has already become more associated with being spammy than with any positive connotations.

Being spammy -and- having its user database liberated at frequent intervals.

Well, regular users don't mind the spam as much and might not even know or realize the true impact of those account leaks.

Plus Microsoft is quite likely to take care of both problems. At least on the security front, since 2005 or so, I haven't heard of any leaks on their part.

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#109

Post by kayoone »

ZanyProgrammer wrote: post #65
curiousgal wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What market is exactly that? I still have no idea what Linkedin is all about. Edit: Yes, keep downvoting me, asking questions about LinkedIn clearly doesn't add to the discussion. sigh

It seems like LinkedIn is more the butt of jokes now than in its heyday when everyone was advised to get on it. Heyday being 2011-ish? Or is there a large number of C-level type people who went to elite colleges and are SV VCs who use it a lot, who are just out of my social league?

In my circles (software dev in europe) everyone is on LinkedIn and a LOT of recruiting goes through it. I don't like it at all, but it is the status quo for recruiting in many countries.

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#110

Post by lloyd-christmas »

badlogic wrote: post #100
karterk wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, the armchair critic. I'm by no means a Microsoft fanboy, but things have been much better under Satya Nadella.

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.
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