back to article Microsoft to buy LinkedIn

Microsoft is to buy online CV endorsement factory LinkedIn for $26.2bn, it has just announced. The acquisition was announced by Microsoft on their website. The all-cash transaction values LinkedIn at $26.2bn, inclusive of LinkedIn's net cash. LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner will remain CEO of it and report to Microsoft CEO Satya …

  1. Pete4000uk

    Oh dear

    The kiss of death

    1. Preston Munchensonton

      Re: Oh dear

      Indeed. LinkedIn! From the people who brought you EDLIN and MS Bob!

      1. macjules
        Black Helicopters

        Re: Oh dear

        Dear valued LinkedIn customer,

        First of all let me promise you that Microsoft will never to reveal your profile to any other of our trusted marketing partners. However we will require you to download and move your existing LinkedIn profile over to our new Microsoft Business Connect app. This is not only for your own convenience but also for the convenience of just about every single UK 'IT Specialist' Job Agency, who think they know all about the LinkedIn API.

        Did I mention that all those really annoying agencies are now our trusted marketing partners? Oops, sorry about that, but hell, I bet you already knew that.

    2. Voland's right hand Silver badge

      Re: Oh dear

      I did not know that kissing a zombie can make it any more dead than it is already.

      For most people LinkedIn died the moment it decided to cater solely to the HR professional.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The kiss of death

      Good.

      (where's the grumpy cat icon?)

      1. msknight

        Re: The kiss of death

        Yup. Just blanked my profile. Not that I got a lot of benefit out of it anyway.

  2. Shaha Alam

    hooray! cocaine and hookers all round, folks!

  3. flashdba
    Coat

    I foresee a headline on a website not a million miles away from here:

    Microsoft Buys LinkedIn - Slips Weiner Into Satya's Backroom Staff

  4. Spasticus Autisticus
    Mushroom

    Delete me

    If I hadn't recently cancelled my account anyway, I'd be cancelling it right now. I suspect my details are still on a LinkedIn database somewhere, how long do 'deleted' accounts last before they truly disappear?

    1. Woodnag

      Re: Delete me

      They don't. If you 'delete' data, you simply become the only person who can't see it. I expect people with an HR account for vetting candidates look at what has been editted and deleted.

      1. energystar
        Holmes

        Re: Delete me

        "... If you 'delete' data, you simply become the only person who can't see it..." Enlightening my day, Woodnag ;)

        If not having conscience of the PetaTons of s#!t going through those tubes, could agree. Distillates is the fashion now, unless you're one of those wackos encrypting 'the handcrafts way'.

    2. Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese Silver badge

      Re: Delete me

      Seeing as LinkedIn had a massive database breach, I imagine your details are out there forever.

  5. David Roberts
    Windows

    Oh FSCK!

    Full integration with W10 as the only platform?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Oh FSCK!

      First, they're now slurping a lot of data in one (very expensive) move.

      Next they will try to install Windows 10 any time you logon...

  6. Simbu

    $26bn? That must be a typo...

    Twenty-Six BILLION dollars. On a circlejerk of sharky recruiters and lying job chancers.

    To put things in perspective: Google bought Youtube for $1.65bn 10 years ago. Skype was $8.5bn.

    Last year they sold a stake in Uber. What is Nadella smoking?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: $26bn? That must be a typo...

      Guess someone has to stop Nadella and his board before it is too late... if Elop was a trojan horse, what is Nadella???

      Oh well, they could use LN to look for a new CEO....

    2. energystar
      Childcatcher

      "...The all-cash transaction..."

      Pittance.

  7. Mage Silver badge
    Facepalm

    I cancelled

    Ages ago I set up a disposable email address,

    changed all my details

    closed account

    deleted email address from my hosting.

    Linkedin is just full of nonsense and spammy. Maybe started as Social Networks for professionals, but just ended up rubbish.

    I can't think what the MS strategy is.

    It's not April 1st.

    1. Voland's right hand Silver badge

      Re: I cancelled

      It is a Social Network for professionals all right. The ones that are referred to as "recruitment professionals".

      It's value to anybody else is somewhere between null and sqrt(-1).

    2. GrumpenKraut
      FAIL

      Re: I cancelled

      > I can't think what the MS strategy is.

      "Something something ON THE INTERNET! Brilliant! Me too!"

      Seriously, how do they even plan to retrieve one tenth of the price? Putting fucking tiles on it?

  8. paulf
    Windows

    Money burning a hole in your pocket Sat Nad?

    $27bn? Phew. Really? Wow. That eclipses the first three in this list of Monkey boy's acquisition blunders*.

    Does this mean SatNad is trying to out Balmer, Balmer in one go by consolidating all his CEO ass hattery into one single massive value bonfire fuck up?

    *Nokia, aQuantive and Online Services come to just over $25bn by my calc, over a billion short of Linked In. That list doesn't include the near miss that was the $35bn odd Ballmer offered for Yahoo! (pre ! tilt) but Jerry Yang turned down.

    1. paulf
      Terminator

      Re: Money burning a hole in your pocket Sat Nad?

      While I was writing the above comment my regular Monday delivery of LinkedIn Spam arrived, right on cue. Time to sort out the disposable email address (long over due) before it gets fully borged into the MS collective.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Embrace, extend, and extinguish

    Please, please, pretty please?

  10. alexmcm

    Who are Microsoft's M&A advisors??? They bought Skype and Nokia and basically had to write them off, now they've bought this steaming pile, which was a write off before they even bought it.

    Are Microsoft intentionally trying to bankrupt themselves buy buying 'past sell-by date' companies?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      You are missing the point of the jolly caucus race

      You need to watch Alice in Wonderland (the original one) a few times.

      If an American (usually tech) company assets start to approach or god forbid exceed the value of their valuation it shows up on the radar of people like Icahn and Co. These guys come, fire the current management team, strip the assets, consume the cash pile and let various bits of flotsam remaining after that be carried by the stream.

      So companies approaching this magic threshold work actively towards improving their valuation to assets ratio. The more common method is to buy back shares - this reduces the cash pile while increasing the stock price at the same time. Unfortunately, this does not always provide the expected results especially when your cash pile is abroad. In that case, some M&A for a ridiculous amount of money is used instead. As a result the company disappears off Icahn and Co radar for a while as its new asset to valuation ration makes it a non-target for a while.

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Mushroom

    I have a Windows Phone Fart App for sale

    USD $15 Million. Cheap.

    Satya, call me to discuss. We can do this without the bankers.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: I have a Windows Phone Fart App for sale

      "We can do this without the bankers."

      There's your mistake right there. Unless the bankers get their cut nothing happens.

    2. energystar
      Boffin

      Re: I have a Windows Phone Fart App for sale

      Please extend a little over its AI specs...

  12. Fihart

    Celebrate -- the more money Microsoft chuck down the drain, the sooner they get out of our lives.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Linux

    Goodbyee!

    Now no self-respecting Linux grey-breard will seek employment via LinkedIn. And rightly so!

  14. Woodnag

    MS account

    Wonder if those of us without an MS a/c will be forced to get one to continue with linkedin?

  15. andrewj

    Headline five years from now: "Microsoft sells LinkedIn for $26 million"

    1. Robert Moore

      Headline five years from now: "Microsoft sells LinkedIn for $26"

      FTFY

  16. energystar
    Windows

    Do you realize, Microsoft...

    That LinkedIn is not a Store portal, but a Bazaar one?

    One of the biggest stumbling blocks to digital valuation -consumer side- is the inability to resell.

    [Any personal offers?] ;D

  17. Howard Hanek
    Childcatcher

    Medusa Was a Dilettante

    Microsoft turns entire companies into stone and then sells them off for the price of the cartage.

  18. JLV
    WTF?

    I rather dislike using corp-speak if it can be avoided.

    But in this case... synergy???

    Even allowing that Linkedin is fairly dominant in its niche, what benefit do either parties derive from being together? What does LI do for MS and vice versa? They seem orthogonal in concerns unless MS wants to build a "community" for itself. Kiss of Death, as mentioned, still seems to apply - LI is goona be "less cool" and 26B is a biggish chunk to faff on a very questionable buy.

    Bet LinkedIn shareholders are :) $$$ :)

    Nad is a hard guy to pin down. You think him smart: Win 10 giveaway, Linux mssql, BSD, net core.

    Then he signs off on sheer stoopids that are way more visible: Win 10 install nagware & telemetry. And now this?

    1. energystar
      Angel

      synergy???

      The synergy of hegemony ;D

      PR just being a pile of layer after layer [of lies].

    2. energystar
      Paris Hilton

      "... Win 10 install nagware & telemetry..."

      Who doesn't???

  19. Chris King

    26 Billion Dollars ?!

    Like I've said before about Twitter - those figures only make sense if you mean the Zimbabwean Dollar rather than the American.

    26 billion ZWD = a bag of penny chews in any normal economy, and STILL a rip-off price.

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