Microsoft and LinkedIn: it just makes sense
Microsoft announced last Monday it was to buy LinkedIn for $26.2 billion: as its boss, Satya Nadella, points out, it’s the most expensive operation the company has ever carried out, and in my opinion, a fine way to show that Microsoft has left the disastrous management of Steve Ballmer behind and is ready to once again be one of the most interesting players on the social media scene.
The price paid is equivalent to $196 a share, a heavy premium, but one that needs to be seen in context. The memorandum that the CEO of LinkedIn sent to employees was titled “LinkedIn + Microsoft: changing the way the world works”, and looks in detail at a key issue: why being bought by Microsoft isn’t the laughing matter it was in 2012, and instead generates a feeling that the two companies fit, and that Nadella’s Microsoft is a place worth working at, and that its objectives are realistic.
In 2000, Steve Ballmer inherited a Microsoft valued at $600 billion, and left it in 2013 worth just $270 million, after having missed out on revolutions such as open coding, smartphones, social networks and cloud…
