back to article Microsoft buys LinkedIn for the price of 36 Instagrams

Microsoft is swooping in to buy CV and soapbox site LinkedIn, in an all-cash deal worth a whopping $26.2bn. The software giant is paying $196 per share for LinkedIn, a $61 premium on the enterprise social platform's closing price on last Friday. Jeff Weiner will remain CEO of LinkedIn, reporting to Microsoft’s CEO Satya …

  1. TonyJ

    Eh?

    I see no synergy here. Unless MS are tying to either get into social media and turn LinkedIn into a Facebook clone and/or they're going to use it as a Windows 10 download path... ;)

    1. Mage Silver badge

      Re: Eh?

      It's already a bad Facebook clone.

      "Professional" is a joke.

      It's a spamfest and privacy ripper.

      1. davidp231

        Re: Eh?

        And one you can't block people on either.. in fact they catagorically state it's not possible because it "goes against the nature of the site". Good if you want to harass someone you've blocked on Failbook, as I found out the hard way.

      2. BillG
        WTF?

        Re: Eh?

        I use LinkedIn all the time, I find it a very valuable professional resource. And unlike others here I am rarely critical of Microsoft.

        But I can't see this as anything less than a complete and total disaster. I see MS using this to try to start to build a Google-type information-sharing, privacy-ripping empire. I see MS demanding everyone have an outlook.com email address the same way Google services require Gmail. I see my LI email address being spammed to high heaven while my privacy is violated more times than a stripper in the VIP room. I see LI features that only work if the Win10 app is installed. Nothing good can come of this.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Eh?

          > I see my LI email address being spammed to high heaven while my privacy is violated more times than a stripper in the VIP room.

          But surely it will be like Skype, now that MS own that I get a never ending stream of beautiful women wanting to be my friends. With LI, then I'll get a never ending stream on "professional" women wanting to be my friend "professionally"

        2. Vic

          Re: Eh?

          I find it a very valuable professional resource.

          Yeah, I'm looking for a job too :-)

          I see my LI email address being spammed to high heaven

          sed -i -e "s/^linkedin.*//" /etc/aliases

          You're welcome.

          Vic.

        3. BobChip
          Coat

          Re: Eh? - Nothing good can come of this?

          Past performance is usually a good indicator of future performance. (See LI profiles for clarification of the general principle). MS could easily write off a past loss of ($8 bn - Nokia), but a future loss of $26 bn really will scare the shareholders. I suspect there will be many more than 1,850 unfortunate profiles looking for new jobs this time.

          Just a question of when?

          1. Vic
            Joke

            Re: Eh? - Nothing good can come of this?

            I suspect there will be many more than 1,850 unfortunate profiles looking for new jobs this time.

            Well there you go, then - guaranteed growth...

            Vic.

    2. g e

      I found the synergy!

      " intelligent and delightful"

      Two things I associate with neither company - there's the commonality!

    3. Tim 11

      Presumably the supposed "synergy" is harvesting personal data - to what end I'm not entirely sure but it seems to be the fashion nowadays. Still, considering MS's recent performance (technical and business), I can't imaging they will actually be able to achieve this.

      The only real beneficiaries of this deal are LinkedIn shareholders though there will be some small benefit for those of us who find LinkedIn irritating, as it gradually declines and MS eventually declares it to have been "superceded" by something utterly unrelated like WCF or Surface.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Eh?

      "a LinkedIn newsfeed that serves up articles based on the project you are working on"

      So basically they are going to open up all your [private and confidential] Office365 content, scan it for interesting keywords and phrases, and serve up adverts based on this. May be they have been doing this already?

      "Office suggesting an expert to connect with via LinkedIn to help with a task you're trying to complete"

      Sounds like cyber espionage to me: company A is working on secret project X, gets a notification that company or person B is also working on a similar project. That's the sort of leak that would normally get you in court under the terms of your employment contract or NDA.

      1. Stoneshop
        Headmaster

        Re: Eh?

        So basically they are going to open up all your [private and confidential] Office365 content,

        "Working on confidential content" and "cloud services" (not limited to O365). I see a contradiction here.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Eh?

      "I see no synergy here."

      I do, sort off. You see, before we had Microsoft accounts which granted you access to their services we had MSN. Microsoft Network. It was basically rolled into Hotmail but in the end it was still MSN, and much more than a media site alone. It was a social media network on its own, but without the more intruding stuff which you had in areas such as Twitter and Facebook. In fact: this was the only social media network I somewhat used. Heck; together with MSN Messenger things simply worked.

      Well, we all know what happened next. They bought Skype and that was suppose to replace MSN Messenger, the whole MSN network also got dumped in favour of Microsoft accounts and that was basically it. Skype would replace some of the functionality (I never liked Skype though) and using outlook.com you could "somewhat" use social-media alike stuff.

      So here we are. Instead of expanding on something they already had and trying to perfect it they dumped it in favour of stuff which a lot of people never cared for. And now they're trying to re-invent the wheel using LinkedIn. Of course at a time where lots of people have given up on this as well.

      I have to give Microsoft some credit: if anyone can make something out of the mess which is LinkedIn right now it's Microsoft in my opinion. They certainly have the potential. Only problem: will anyone actually care?

    6. martinusher Silver badge

      Re: Eh?

      Way back I knew a relatively senior engineering manager who was temporarily redundant. He got a job as a recruiter, a seemingly odd move. His take on this -- "If I want to have the pick of the apples then I'll get a job at the market". That's exactly what happened -- he got a nice job out of it.

      Linkedin is not just a social media website, its network of developers can not only help you cherry pick the ones you want but it can also give you a very good idea what another company -- a competitor maybe -- is up to.

    7. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Eh?

      I see no synergy here

      It's in the letter sent to all MS staff in the justified hope that someone would email it to the press (you can't really call it leaking as it was clearly intended for public consumption).

      "new opportunities will be created for monetization through individual and organization subscriptions and targeted advertising"

      Or, translated, it'll be harder to see anything on LinkedIn without advertising in headers, footers, popups, pop-unders and "on exit" messages, and probably also on your image. Secondly, as LinkedIn is entirely US based you will have absolutely zero control over the data they have, and my experience suggests that LinkedIn has never deleted anything I removed, only made it unavailable to the website (the continued accuracy of suggestions of people to hook up with gave it away).

      In addition, they will most likely attempt to move everyone into "professional" and so try to charge you for the fact that you are supplying personal data - MS has gone so keen on subscriptions that it even decided to play nice with Linux until it has enough people hooked (ask the educational establishment how that well that panned out for them).

      On the plus side, it takes exactly someone like Microsoft to ruin the thing and re-open that market for competition.

      Maybe Xing will thus finally take off.

      1. Vic

        Re: Eh?

        In addition, they will most likely attempt to move everyone into "professional" and so try to charge you for the fact that you are supplying personal data

        Whilst I hesitate to describe LinkedIn as a "golden goose", that's certainly how you go about strangling it...

        Vic.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Facepalm

    Bonkers

    MSFT opens down 2%, markets don't see it.

    1. BasicChimpTheory

      Re: Bonkers

      You're looking to the market to make sense of this (or anything else)...?

      The market saw MS drop 1/4 of its cash reserves on a single asset. That is the full explanation of the market's response. IT'll go back up (maybe higher) in a few days.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Bonkers

        That is the full explanation of the market's response. IT'll go back up (maybe higher) in a few days.

        Higher on exactly what basis? Having liquidated businesses like aQuantive in a failed c$5bn attempt to be like Google in adds, having liquidated Nokia in an c$8bn attempt to be like Apple, now they want to repeat the trick burn $26bn to be like Facebook?

        Tell us how the markets are going to see this as a positive?

        1. IsJustabloke
          Trollface

          Re: Bonkers RE Tell us how the markets are going to see this as a positive?

          From the article....

          "Microsoft’s shares were down five per cent on its Friday closing price on the news but have since recovered"

          I guess the markets weren't that bothered after all.

        2. BasicChimpTheory

          Re: Bonkers

          Sorry. I didn't mean to infer the market was going to do something SENSIBLE.

          MSFT will recover this 2% in little time. Why? I dunno. Why was it so well valued to begin with?

          If it is such a porr business decison and the market is such a good judge of, well, anything, then why was the devaulation so small when the cost was so significant?

          This adjustment is a rounding error.

          1. PrivateCitizen

            Re: Bonkers

            @BasicChimpTheory

            This adjustment is a rounding error.

            I agree. While the shares are slightly down over a couple of days ago, on a larger timescale its not really noticable.

            Using share price to gauge the long term value of a business decisions always seems a bit irrational to me.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Bonkers

              Using share price to gauge the long term value of a business decisions always seems a bit irrational to me.

              Unless your business is trading shares, which is a wholly different world to operating a company for profit..

      2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: Bonkers

        "The market saw MS drop 1/4 of its cash reserves on a single asset. That is the full explanation of the market's response."

        I must admit, overpaying by such a huge amount for a social network, I expected to see a more significant drop in MS share value. If this all goes pear shaped I can see shareholders suing. I'm buying shares in popcorn!

  3. Paul Webb

    LinkedIn shareholders must be very happy

    But the rest sounds like, especially the language, a dystopian nightmare. With adverts.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: LinkedIn shareholders must be very happy

      Not dystopian for me. I've got mad DevOps skills.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: mad DevOps skills.

        These will make you valuable for at most two months! :-)

      2. Sammy Smalls

        Re: LinkedIn shareholders must be very happy

        That made me smile. I want to go to an interview for the sole purpose of using that line. Pictures of Spuds interview in Transporting.

  4. Sammy Smalls

    In terms of a strategy, why is it that my first thought was of Napoleon invading Russia in the winter? Or better still - buying Nokia.

    Maybe I'm wrong, but there must be something better to spend $26B on.

    1. Gunboat Diplomat
      Windows

      @Sammy Smalls

      "Maybe I'm wrong, but there must be something better to spend $26B on."

      Oh absolutely, I would have thought porting everything they have onto Linux (Office, etc) would be good - they'd get more sales probably.

      Of course, to me the dream would be to just have the Windows 7's UI as a Desktop manager on top of a Linux distro and get AD ported to Linux and then we'd never have to see Windows on the server or desktop ever again.

      [Reluctant] Windows User [at work] icon

      Alternatively, throw $25 billion in a fire and buy linked in with the final billion?

      1. PrivateCitizen

        Windows on Linux

        Of course, to me the dream would be to just have the Windows 7's UI as a Desktop manager on top of a Linux distro and get AD ported to Linux and then we'd never have to see Windows on the server or desktop ever again.

        This would just teach you to hate your Linux distro instead of Windows.

    2. Warm Braw

      there must be something better to spend $26B on

      Well, that amount of money would have bought nearly 4 Nokias - and despite the burning platform crashing in Microsoft's ownership that money at least bought Microsoft something it could have built on and some tangible assets.

      But LinkedIn? An evanescent user base and 10,000 employees with titles like Talent Solutions Solutions Consultant (I kid you not)? Whose operating income is increasingly negative?

      1. Midnight

        "But LinkedIn? An evanescent user base and 10,000 employees with titles like Talent Solutions Solutions Consultant (I kid you not)? Whose operating income is increasingly negative?"

        Perhaps that position could be replaced by a contractor. A Talent Solutions Solutions Consultant Consultant, if you will.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          A Talent Solutions Solutions Consultant Consultant

          That's one of the few reasons I like Twitter: it forces you to find shorter expressions. In this case, "loser".

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Trollface

    The first thing that will happen ...

    ... you cannot access your LinkedIn profile unless you are running Windows 10 with telemetry back to MS enabled.

    1. Someone Else Silver badge
      FAIL

      And the next thing that will happen ...

      ...is the self-decimation of the LinkedIn user base. All that will be left are a few fanbois with titles like the one listed in an earlier post (e.g. Windows Solutions Solutions Consultant, or Facilitator of Lost Causes or some such).

    2. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: The first thing that will happen ...

      You joke but that is a very real possibility.

      MS wants everything on their Azure cloud and buying LinkIn and Windows 10 is part of the roadmap.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Pretty obvious, no ?

    MS now has the inside scoop on technology trends - or rather what people are posting on LinkedIn as "hot skills". Clearly they think they can do something with that.

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Re: Pretty obvious, no ?

      Hire people to write an OS that doesn't suck/blow (depending on your preference)?

    2. Stoneshop
      Windows

      Re: Pretty obvious, no ?

      An Agile Python DevOps Cloud Container version of Windows.

    3. Vic

      Re: Pretty obvious, no ?

      or rather what people are posting on LinkedIn as "hot skills"

      I've got a number of endorsements for the things I do - the vast majority from people who've never seen me do those things. I've even got an endorsement for something I can't do (from several different people).

      Yep - LinkedIn is a real goldmine of valuable information...

      Vic.

      1. Dr Scrum Master

        Re: Pretty obvious, no ?

        I've got a number of endorsements for the things I do - the vast majority from people who've never seen me do those things. I've even got an endorsement for something I can't do (from several different people).

        Me too!

        Recommendations were bad enough with mutual back-slapping by people you'd never ever want to work with, but the endorsements are just a joke.

  7. Kristian Walsh Silver badge

    Yeah, but that's Zimbabwean Dollars, right?

    Okay, at least LinkedIn turns a profit (somthing Instagram never did), but $26 billion is a lot to recoup.

    $2.x bn for Mojang, aka Minecraft, made sense at its revenues and profits, this just seems insane.

    1. Eddy Ito
      Meh

      Re: Yeah, but that's Zimbabwean Dollars, right?

      You might want to check that again. Yahoo Finance has LinkedIn's Diluted EPS at -1.3 for the past year and their profit margin at -5.27%. Sure their quarterly revenue growth is nice but still you wonder how long that will last.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Soon, no more LinkedIn spam!

    With any luck, Microsoft golden touch will make LinkedIn collapse, and I will no longer have to wade through all the spam they sent me over the years, with a faked From address and everything.

    On the other hand, Microsoft probably wants to borrow their expertise for the GWX marketing campaign: nothing like an e-mail appearing to come from your boss and urging to you to install W10 ASAP.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Soon, no more LinkedIn spam!

      With any luck, Microsoft golden touch will make LinkedIn collapse, and I will no longer have to wade through all the spam they sent me over the years, with a faked From address and everything.

      Interesting, I get next to no spam from LI. Not sure what I did because I haven't blacklisted it. Oh yes, I recall, I stripped the profile until it only had a single line of data. That keeps my name in use, but anyone wanting any real data will have to get in touch - and that account has a rather heavy duty spam filter on it.

      I also have a fake account, and it's very funny to see the link requests come in even though I made the name borderline weird :).

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Soon, no more LinkedIn spam!

        @AC How weird?

        Us brits do love some of your strange US names (assuming your from the Federal Republic of Trump)

        My favourites are Cheese,Chow and Danish but maybe because it's food.

        Full list here:

        http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2520431/Everybody-loves-Cheese-Weirdest-baby-names-2013-inspired-dairy-zoo-animals-breakfast-pastries.html

        (From the Daily Mail, so it must be true)

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Soon, no more LinkedIn spam!

          assuming your from the Federal Republic of Trump

          Nope, I'd still spell that with "you're" so I'm at least European (sorry, couldn't resist, but you started it with assuming I'm a 'Merican :) ).

  9. Lunatik
    Facepalm

    Double-yew-tee-eff

    $60 a user?!

    Looking forward to the $22B writedown in 2020.

    Nice work, Satya.

    1. Vic

      Re: Double-yew-tee-eff

      Looking forward to the $22B writedown in 2020.

      If it follows the Nokia pattern, it'll be a $32B writedown...

      Vic.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Excellent!

    Here's hoping Microsoft makes it disappear forever.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Excellent!

      > Here's hoping Microsoft makes it disappear forever.

      Or Here's hoping linkedin make Microsoft disappear for ever.

      Is mutually assured destruction too much to hope for?

  11. paulf
    Windows

    Money burning a hole in your pocket Sat Nad?

    Despite this story being upgraded from News Bytes to full article I still can't believe it. $26bn? Phew. Really? Wow. My flabber is well and truly gasted! I still can't see any reason other than 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?

    For those that don't recall - here's El Reg's recap of Monkey Boy's acquisition blunders. SatNad's MS is offering $26.2bn for LinkedIn yet the first three in that El Reg list of Ballmer's mistakes (Nokia, aQuantive and Online Services) come to just over $25bn by my calc. That's over a billion short of Linked In and still doesn't include the monumental near miss that was the $35bn odd Ballmer offered for Yahoo! (pre ! tilt) but Jerry Yang turned down. I'd speculate Ballmer thinks he had a lucky escape but he probably thinks it's still a compelling purchase (post ! tilt).

    1. Ken Hagan Gold badge

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

      Well, to be fair the article did mention that ... "Microsoft’s investments haven’t always paid off."

      Actually, can anyone here think of one that did? I'm struggling to think of anything that MS have ever bought that wasn't just money down the drain. I'm sure that there were some products that they bought and re-badged which have earned nicely in the years since. (I think SQL Server was originally bought in and I think it makes money for MS these days, so I'll allow something like that.) However, these are all surely ancient history by now and several orders of magnitude smaller than the cash-spunks we've seen since billg stepped down (and MS lost its way).

      1. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

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

        Well, to be fair the article did mention that ... "Microsoft’s investments haven’t always paid off."

        Actually, can anyone here think of one that did?

        MS-DOS?

        :)

        1. Pirate Dave Silver badge

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

          "Actually, can anyone here think of one that did?

          MS-DOS?"

          Visual Basic, for another... ;)

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    £26Bn seems a bit steep when they could have just downloaded the user list from Pastebin.

  13. CloudMonster

    Goodbye Salesfarce

    With their biggest and fastest growing competitor now in control of the world's largest and most up to date professional CRM platform, Salesfarce will face even more of a uphill struggle to justify the relevance and cost of their proprietary data silo. I recall SFDC attempted on numerous occasions to secure a close partnership with LinkedIn, only to be rebuffed every time.

    1. Vic

      Re: Goodbye Salesfarce

      With their biggest and fastest growing competitor now in control of the world's largest and most up to date professional CRM platform

      I always thought I was a sarcastic bugger, but from time to time, I get given a masterclass in the subject...

      Well done!

      Vic.

  14. JcRabbit

    The day they buy it is now the day I'll delete my account there.

    1. TRT Silver badge

      The day I'll delete my account...

      You'll be lucky. Deleting a LinkedIN account is one of the labours of Hercules. Like avoiding a Windows 10 upgrade. That might be why they've bought it - they're after the technology behind LinkedIN's account deletion process.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The day I'll delete my account...

        Ain't that the truth. A close friend of mine died 5 years ago, she still shows up on "people you might know" offers from LinkedIn.

        It used to be useful as a sort of self-updating address book, but any useful functionality is buried in the crap now.

        1. Vic

          Re: The day I'll delete my account...

          A close friend of mine died 5 years ago, she still shows up on "people you might know" offers from LinkedIn.

          An ex-girlfriend of mine had her profile updated about a week after she died. That ... troubled me.

          Vic.

      2. Synonymous Howard

        Re: The day I'll delete my account...

        Better still .. don't delete it, instead change ALL your details to something weird to help poison their well.

        And change your email address to a specially created yahoo or hotmail one of course. It won't stop linkedin spam to your original signup address but you can redirect that to /dev/null

        1. Dadmin
          Coat

          Re: The day I'll delete my account...

          That's funny because I'm reworking my LinkedIn profile and the name I'll be using is Dave Null. YMMV

          1. JetSetJim
            Mushroom

            Re: The day I'll delete my account...

            Bobby Tables ftw

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: The day I'll delete my account...

          Better still .. don't delete it, instead change ALL your details to something weird to help poison their well.

          It's AFAIK the ONLY thing that works, because as far as I can tell they're hanging on to data you delete.

      3. Stoneshop
        Trollface

        Re: The day I'll delete my account...

        Like avoiding a Windows 10 upgrade.

        No problem, unless one of those dastardly Windows Updates is surreptitiously blocking any Linux iso you want to download.

  15. BasicChimpTheory

    Strange to see an amlost universal, non-tech response from you lot on this one.

    SatNav (HIYO!) has basically said "Hey, we use MS products to INTERROGATE THE DETAILS OF YOUR WORK AND EMPLOYER'S IP" and you're just all talking catty shit about the end of a tedious social media network?

    Get it torgether, Commentards.

    1. frank ly

      "This combination will make it possible for new experiences such as a LinkedIn newsfeed that serves up articles based on the project you are working on and Office suggesting an expert to connect with via LinkedIn to help with a task you're trying to complete."

      Oh yes, that's the really scary part.

      1. Warm Braw

        Office suggesting an expert to connect with via LinkedIn to help with a task you're trying to complete

        There is a profile for at least one Clippy on LinkedIn, but I don't see a Microsoft resemblance.

    2. Vic

      "Hey, we use MS products to INTERROGATE THE DETAILS OF YOUR WORK AND EMPLOYER'S IP"

      Really?

      Where would they find that, then?

      Vic.

  16. thames

    So they're going to data mine the information from your CV, your office software, and your ERP system, and use the result to sell you stuff? I'm not sure I would be looking forward to that.

    Leaving the creepy data mining aside though, this sort of acquisition is probably the future direction of Microsoft. Their older products such as Windows are becoming legacy platforms which will fade away as they are undercut by open source commodities.

    However, that's a lot of money to pay for a company that Reuters reported was losing money (net loss), not hitting growth targets, and having a tough time outside of the American market. If it was for a fraction of the price, it might make more sense. However, the new tech bubble has inflated the cost of anything "cloud". Microsoft might have been better off keeping their money in the bank and picking up companies cheap after the next tech market collapse. That's what the big oil companies are doing now in the oil industry.

    1. Andy E

      Reserved for optional title

      I must admit that after reading the various Sat Nad quotes I too got the impression that they are just buying a resource they can use to data mine to target sales activities. Seems a bit on the expensive side.

      I'm going to update my CV to include Age of Empires. It might just be the trigger Microsoft's automated data mining needs to reboot the series.

  17. kmac499

    How much !!!

    $26bn for 433million people, thats $60 a name (or thereabouts).

    My mate Yuri will sell you a list of names for 5cents apiece, for 10cents he'll include their credit card details as well.

    Mind you it does make Googles buy of NEST look a real bargain <cough>.

    1. inmypjs Silver badge

      Re: How much !!!

      "$26bn for 433million people, thats $60 a name (or thereabouts)."

      I'm one of them, or 2 or 3 or I can't even remember how many times I created throw away accounts because I wanted to look at someone.

      Wonder how much it is per real name.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: How much !!!

        "Wonder how much it is per real name"

        I'd guess at this point, it's about $1bn per real name. the rest being complete fakes...

      2. Ken Hagan Gold badge

        Re: How much !!!

        "I can't even remember how many times I created throw away accounts because I wanted to look at someone."

        Conversely, there are certainly people out there whose "links" have been accumulated purely because their real job is the sort of public-facing activity where it is helpful to have a significant presence in social media. It's not *used* for anything. It's just something that people in certain professions need (apparently) to have these days.

        Like all social media, the data in LinkedIn is worth what the people who contributed it have spent gathering it.

  18. VeganVegan

    A cunning plan indeed

    Step 1. Buy LinkedIn to create a Clippy on steroids-cubed, and sic it on the users of Office365

    Step 2. ?

    Step 3. Profit!

  19. Alistair
    Coat

    A brand new hackronym

    Micro Linked In Sofware Enterprise (edition)

    (I'll duck out the door now)

  20. Mike 16

    Makes a certain sense

    After all, Comcast bought Plaxo.

    Is it just me, or is the _least_ creepy social network now the one under Putin's thumb (LiveJournal).

    It's like Henry Kissinger winning the Peace Prize.

    1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

      Re: Makes a certain sense

      Um, Henry Kissinger did win the Peace Prize. Or rather, Kissinger and Le Duc Tho were jointly offered the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize for their work on the Paris Peace Accords which prompted the withdrawal of American forces from the Vietnam war. Kissinger accepted. Le Duc Tho declined to accept the award because the war had not ended. ("Peace? What peace?")

      In 1976, I kid you not, Kissinger became the first honorary member of the Harlem Globetrotters - if we're doing 'absurd', that's a better example.

      Anyway: Henry Kissinger, how I'm missing 'yer...

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    more intelligent and delightful

    gulp

  22. steamnut

    I'm outta there

    I needed a good excuse to can my linkedin account as all I seem to get is requests from folks in other countries that I never know.

    With the possibility of Microsoft spamming me with Office365 / Azure / Win10 offers I'm closing my account right now. Done!

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Devil

    LinkedIn will eventually be renamed to ...

    ... Microsoft Headhunter

    You heard it here first, folks.

    1. captain veg Silver badge

      Re: LinkedIn will eventually be renamed to ...

      More likely something like Microsoft Office Sharepoint Resumé Bucket For Business 2017. Just before they write off the purchase price and spray it with the legacy airbrush.

      Haven't heard much about Yammer recently.

      -A.

  24. Zippy's Sausage Factory
    Meh

    Let me guess...

    Soon, you will need an Office 365 licence to use LinkedIn...

    1. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: Let me guess...

      Very damn likely.

  25. Fenton

    $26B????

    That's half an EMC??

    Who makes these business values up?

    1. Mikel

      Re: $26B????

      They are going to have to onshore foreign cash and take the tax hit, so more like $40B.

      1. Colin Ritchie
        Windows

        Re: $26B????

        "Despite having a cash pile of about $92bn, Microsoft said it would pay for LinkedIn mostly by issuing new debt." BBC News.

        Does that dodge tax?

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    about does it

    " the LinkedIn and Office 365 engagement will grow"

    Oh goody. That will finally kill off my last bits of desire to stay with LinkedIn.

  27. NomNomNom

    Hopefully this means Minecraft will finally get LinkedIn support

  28. N2

    Oh dear

    Thats them down the pan then.

  29. Spoonsinger

    Sometimes, just sometimes you just want to shout out "You fucking mental nut jobs!!!!!". However it's not PC so I won't.

  30. myhandler

    I'm only on LInked In for the unlikely event someone needs to read about me for work.

    I see the updates the people I'm linked to make and it's universally pointless.

    Facebook seems more fun - cats and photos.

    Meh.

  31. TeeCee Gold badge
    Facepalm

    Clippy

    I see you're trying to piss a fuckton of money up the wall. Would you like help with that?

  32. Herby

    Begs the question(s)...

    Who is going to buy twitter?

    How soon are people going to leave...

    As for the $60/user, just remember: If you can't see the product, look in a mirror, the product is YOU and it is being sold!!

  33. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    M$oft can censor Linkedin comments in China

    Pay Chinese officials enough dosh and your company can enter the China market, as long as you censor everything first.

  34. Howard Hanek
    Childcatcher

    Medusa Was A Mere Dilettante

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

    1. Brewster's Angle Grinder Silver badge

      Re: Medusa Was A Mere Dilettante

      "...and then sells them off for the price of the Carthage."

      1. Vic

        Re: Medusa Was A Mere Dilettante

        "...and then sells them off for the price of Carthage."

        ... Post delendum, natch.

        Vic.

  35. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Satya accidentally clicked on an offer in his inbox

    Satya, don't miss your exclusive offer on LinkedIn (31%) Premium!

  36. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge

    26 billion?

    Thats enough to build your own space program and buy a volcano lair or enough to get you a nuclear powered aircraft carrier and a boomer (ballistic missile submarine) too.

    Just what value do those user accounts actually have?

    Wheres the "WTF?" icon?

  37. raving angry loony

    Good reminder...

    ... to delete what remains of my (mostly empty) LinkedIn account. Be damned if I'm going to help Microsoft in any way. Other than perhaps helping them clean their database. Damn, no matter what I do, they win, I lose.

  38. fidodogbreath
    Happy

    New conversion factor!

    Instagrams to Olympic-size swimming pools of $1 bills

    According to a random user comment* I found on the interwebs, it takes 2,213,956,784 dollar bills to fill an Olympic-size swimming pool ($OSSP). If we take that as fact**, the MS-LinkedIn acquisition was worth 11.839 $OSSP.

    11.839 $OSSP = 36 Instagrams. Therefore:

    1 Instagram = 3.04 $OSSP

    1 $OSSP = 0.329 Instagrams

    * https://www.quora.com/How-many-1-unstacked-bills-would-it-take-to-fill-up-an-Olympic-sized-swimming-pool (scroll down to answer #2 by Anonymous)

    ** As we all know, if it were not true, then 'they' wouldn't be allowed to post it online.

    1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

      Re: New conversion factor!

      I quite agree, El Reg's online conversion tool needs an update, stat.

      Meanwhile, have an upvote.

  39. fidodogbreath

    GLIX

    LinkedIn members can now look forward to a constant onslaught of increasingly sneaky and malware-like notices to "upgrade" to LinkedIn 10.

  40. arctic_haze
    Mushroom

    Good bye LinkedIn

    I have a semi-dead account over there. I wondered whether to upgrade it when I find time. But this news made my decision. I'll delete it as soon as I the replacement password gets through greylisting (the account is so old they did not even allow me to log in but just sent out a new password).

    1. arctic_haze

      Re: Good bye LinkedIn

      I did that. First I changed all my data except email (not possible in this case). Then I used advice from this page:

      http://thelinkedinman.com/how-to-close-and-delete-your-linkedin-account/

      As the reason I gave Other, namely "I do not want an account in a Microsoft company".

      Good Bye LinkedIn!!!

      1. ecofeco Silver badge

        Re: Good bye LinkedIn

        Bookmarked.

  41. Down not across
    WTF?

    Why pay so much?

    The software giant is paying $196 per share for LinkedIn, a $61 premium on the enterprise social platform's closing price on last Friday.

    As if he $135 per share wasn't massive overvaluation of lot of hot air, but paying 45% over the share price just seems insane.

  42. Efros

    Account scrubbing time

    Looks as if it's time to scrub that account, their security issues and spamming have only got worse over the last year and their usefulness is diminishing as the annoyances increase.

    1. fidodogbreath

      Re: Account scrubbing time

      Good luck with that. Social media sites are like the Hotel California.

      "Relax," said the night man, "We are programmed to receive.

      You can check-out any time you like, but you can never leave!"

  43. The Mighty Spang

    wat?

    Brilliant, that's a lot of money paid for data that is 80% bullshit.

    After looking at my co-workers profiles a while ago I was shocked at the level of BS, overexaggeration and outright lies that was up there.

    At that point I removed everything from my profile excpt words to the effect of 'as the only honest man left in a room full of liars, i refuse to play this game'

    and I *still* get link requests. go figure.

  44. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So, if he's going to be working for Microsoft

    he can reverse the 'e' and the 'i'. It's almost seamless!

  45. bombastic bob Silver badge

    "Microsoft Acquisitions" leitmotif

    http://www.metrolyrics.com/the-blob-lyrics-burt-bacharach.html

    "Beware of the blob, it creeps

    And leaps and glides and slides

    Across the floor

    Right through the door

    And all around the wall

    A splotch, a blotch

    Be careful of the blob"

    (ending theme from 'The Blob', from the early 1960's)

    Yes. Microsoft is now "The Blob". They were "The Borg". Now they're just "The Blob".

  46. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    the company bought Nokia for $7.2bn. The move was a flop,

    Depends on how you judge it. If you THINK ms bought Nokia's business for phones, then you would be right.

    However, MS today revealed their real reason for purchasing Nokia. It was their customisation know-how...

    http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2016/06/13/you-can-now-design-your-own-custom-xbox-one-controller.aspx

  47. The Real Tony Smith

    Microsoft has since hinted that its mobile phone business may be nearing its end

    Ummm, did it ever get started?

  48. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And to think they said

    Balmer was a nutter. SatNad is trying to out nutter the nutter.

    Microsoft seem to be going through an identity crisis. They don't know what they want to be so they are trying to be everything and poorly. If Google built a proper linux distro built for businesses they could do some serious damage to them.

  49. cd / && rm -rf *
    Facepalm

    It's very simple...

    "And in turn, new opportunities will be created for monetization through individual and organization subscriptions and targeted advertising."

    So their "business" model will be to spam you to death with targeted ads, at a time when more and more people than ever are installing ad-blockers. Wonderful timing, SatNad. This is going to be another Nokia.

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