“Microsoft Corp. said it will buy LinkedIn Corp. in a deal valued at $26.2 billion, giving the world’s biggest software provider access to a virtual Rolodex of connected business professionals,” Molly Schuetz reports for Bloomberg.
“Microsoft will pay $196 per share in an all-cash transaction, including LinkedIn’s net cash, is a 49.5% premium to LinkedIn’s closing price Friday,” Schuetz reports. “LinkedIn will retain its brand, culture and independence and Jeff Weiner will remain chief executive officer of the company, Microsoft said in a statement Monday.”
MacDailyNews Take: You know, like Nokia.
“LinkedIn shares surged 49 percent in premarket trading in New York to $194.63,” Schuetz reports. “Microsoft fell 3.7 percent to $49.60.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Wild overpayment. There goes LinkedIn.
Nadella and Weiner discuss the acquisition:
Time to delete my LinkedIn profile.
Amen to that.
I never use mine anyway…
Wow and they have a go at Cook. That said I suppose Microsoft needs to plan for its increasing irrelavence as it stands I guess.
How in the hell is linked in worth 26.2 billion dollars?
It’s not. This is an absurdly stupid transaction. Makes zero sense. Makes less sense than buying Nokia which ended up a complete write down. If you own shares in Microsoft, you’re an idiot. Just seems an irresponsible waste of shareholder money. Even though I’m no MS fan, this deal is so bad it makes me weep for them.
We now have indisputable confirmation that Nadella really is no better than Ballmer. But I miss the comic relief Ballmer so amply provided.
Oooooh Microsoft….
While the big M has made some (some) decent strides in the last couple of years, this is a return to form for boneheadedness. Linked In.. as a information sharing platform sucks big time, as a job seekers tool sucks big time, as social networking tool sucks big time, and mostly is about gathering people’s somewhat dubious opinions about a dubious range of skills and constant emails from people in India and San Francisco wanting to be part your network? What for? Linked in SOUNDS like a good idea but just sort of isn’t. Truly an epic digital waste of time.
Professional contacts and their links. Now will be part of the official NSA backdoor database, courtesy of MicroSoft. They bought it for the membership list. So they can spam them. Monitor them.
Dam. How long till MS destroys that. Oh well, another work contact social network will be created by someone else.
Why is a software company purchasing LinkedIn? What is the purpose of it? How will people’s professional profile help them in profits? Even with LinkedIn popularity (or not), why would Microsoft go that route? I guess the easy answer is that the company is stupid, but there must be a reason such as the company’s team was told to do it by Zelda and her magical crystal ball…
Great job M$. Glad to see that you have not changed a bit.
LinkedIn is good but it is still losing money. Another pit for M$ to throw its cash into. Brilliant.
Great. I deleted my account. Thanks for the heads up!
Just closed my account. It was truly useless anyway, but having helped in some small part to get MSFT to overpay for the property, who knows, that alone may have made it worthwhile.
LinkedIn is hugely valuable, and a very smart acquisition. But it doesn’t sound like they have any idea what to do with it (like Skype before it).
Apple should own this space, holding the Contacts of essentially every successful business person and professional in the world. If Apple could offer us all one check-box in the Contacts app that ensures every contact detail, for every contact we know, would always remain up to date, Apple would have the largest professional database and social network in the world.
Oops. I meant “…and *most valuable* social network in the world.”
I closed my LinkedIn account on May 18th after their passwords were stolen.
Saved me the time of doing it today with the news that Microsoft bought them.
“LinkedIn will retain its brand, culture and independence…”
Sure…we know how that worked out for Nokia.:)
I like their strategy. I like it a lot!
I thought MS would buy Yahoo. They paid too much for LinkedIn. But WE LIKE THAT!
Spend Microsoft! spend Spend SPEND!!!
…Then go bankrupt and end the Dark Age of Computing. 😀 😀 😀
I opened a fake link mess account a couple years ago. Closed it a few months ago. Waste of time.