Microsoft snapped up Linkedin in a monster acquisition worth $26.2 billion last morning leaving both the tech world and Wall Street in awe.
This has left Google with a daunting threat as their attempts in winning in the social has all ended in vain as Microsoft just stepped up buying LinkedIn, trying to waltz it’s way into the market because social is driving an ever increasing share of online traffic, and traffic is power and money.
Google and Larry Page on the other hand have been treading water all this while trying to find a way to get real identities of users. This was what made Linkedin even more important;as it has real identities which otherwise only Facebook has. It could have had access to a database of almost 100 million valuable identities, cross-pollinated it with Google Profiles which is struggling to find it’s own place in the race.
But all said and done Microsoft now has LinkedIn with which it’s focusing on being agile, purpose driven and expanding it’s opportunity. “It’s really the coming together of professional cloud and the professional network” said Mr.Nadella in an interview on monday.
The deal aims to weave networks of professional workers to the tools they use making it all happen on one platform.
An instance would be if LinkedIn is connected to Office it would help the attendees of say a meeting to get to know more about each other from the invitation on their calendars.
Mr.Nadella aims to reshape Microsoft by focusing on products and services provided to corporate customers. He has pushed Microsoft even to platforms it doesn’t have any control over like Android and Linux Desktop OS, and also connecting Microsoft to data sources to provide customers with timely and useful information.
