What do you think of Microsoft's smart move to buy Linked-In for $26 billion.

My vote is it will go about as well as Hewlett Packard's $11 billion cluster for Autonomy. More smoke and mirrors there than here perhaps.

But I just cannot believe the general business public will be high fiving when they realize how much personal info will be flying around the cloud in MS Office apps.

This is a little bigger gamble than the $7 billion fun they had with Nokia.

 

Wow.

 

Who is running the numbers on these acquisitions? That's a mind-boggling purchase price.

 

I'm pretty sure it's all tax-deductible or some such other BS. At least I wouldn't be surprised.

But yeah... 50% over stock market evaluation. Someone is making a killing.

 

and I think it is a proposed cash deal ...............no stock

I'm sure the wall street advisors er...insiders and board members who kept it quiet since Feb made a few shekels

 

Hit the nail on the head! As a MS employee this is my chief concern, especially with vague statements about letting LinkedIn decide on what integration needs to happen which suggests there's not really a plan. Maybe too early to announce since it theoretically could still get squashed, but I would do anything in my power to pump up the PR opp with a clear vision.

My own opinion, yada yada...

 

Now Linkedin users can get notifications for the Win10 upgrade too!

 

*Logs into LinkedIn, gets hit with 500 Skype notifications*

 

One of the few acquisitions in recent times that is at least earning good money, although I guess LinkedIn is facing a major pivot point- still try to be a social network, or become a professional job/networking engine for good? In the latter market its really become a juggernaut in many parts of the world, but I understand if jobsearch is not as sexy as social networking- and if one worries that the revenues don't scale as well as if you could make it into a hygiene buy for every online advertiser in the world (like Google and Facebook).

Don't see many synergies with the rest of their business, but that could be a plus given they've been horrid at it. I do see a "display network" that Microsoft is starting to build with bundled buys possible in search, Skype and now this. (My Skype has skyrocketed in ads recently)...

Ultimately if I were to guess the huge premium is Microsoft trying to buy into the social network game from a portfolio perspective. Might as well do it while they're still cashrich. The other alternatives for this investment thesis- slack? Snapchat? Would be far pricier with less revenues, probably not a good fit with Microsoft.

 

Except for a few who seem to actually find jobs through linkedin, it seems to be the most unpopular "social" site out there. But then perhaps I'm confusing unpopular with slagged-off.

I once got to hear of a friend's forgotten birthday from Linkedin. Otherwise it is a useless stream of binned mails telling me that people I don't want to know saw my profile or that I might be interested in... well, I'm not.

Microsoft is a law unto itself, and more than wealthy enough to be. If any of these acquisitions actually risked the company's future, then they would be very different. Too big, too rich... they always wanted to not only put their software on all our machines, but to own us too. Buying the world, bit by bit.

Curiously, they never attempted to win us by appealing to our hearts. Does anyone actually love microsoft?

 

W8 is good. The Surface Pro potentially awesome. I personally detest the corporation though.

When Microsoft really wants to innovate they are impressive. Thing is I survived Vista so I remain a sceptic.

 

Oh! I didn't know they did that!

 

Hey now, Vista taught me so much about how to fix computer issues! I think they should have included a honorary IT degree in the box with the OS because you were definitely going to have to have one in order to make it through.

I actually feel a bit sorry for certain REALLY innovative groups within MS that can't catch a break. Before Zune died, it actually was looking really nice. The streaming service was ahead of its time and if they had focused on audio quality they could have had something special. I also applaud whoever designed WP7. It takes huge guts to design a non-skumorphic OS and release it to the mainstream. I happen to like the Tron look, and would prefer my future tech to look like that rather than page after page of squircles. Of course people don't like it if they can't express their individuality... by having the same wallpaper as everyone else.