I have so far avoided a 365 account… though I sorta have one through work (till the 24th anyway) but I can’t use it.
I have a computer supplied by Boeing and can’t install CSC stuff on it, heck can’t even use the 365 email cause of contract restrictions. On the bonus of having to find a new job looks like I won’t have to carry around a 2nd laptop just to read email/be available in skype.
2 Likes
I just assumed it was microsofts new hiring plan.
1 Like
From the comments thread on linked article:
19 Likes
Done. 
5 Likes
If the headline was “Microsoft to destroy LinkedIn as service to humanity at the cost of $26.2B” I’d be running a victory lap around the block right now. I’m just hung up on the declaration by the people of America that an amount of their trust and labour sufficient to cover all hospital stays in the nation for a month ought to instead be funneled to the current owners of LinkedIn in exchange for their herculean contributions to making life unbearable.
12 Likes
Minecraft LinkedIn is gonna be sooo awesome.
3 Likes
well they are giving me job leads right now so I can’t hate linkedin too much. but I do sympathize.
2 Likes
The problem is that, when you combine this with Nadella’s ongoing hard-on for getting everyone signed up with a Microsoft account and cloudified and software-as-a-serviced; this is a deserving buyer who probably has plans.
Just wait until LinkedIn becomes approximately as ‘optional’ when trying to use Office or any version of Windows except very, very, carefully neutered entrerprise stuff, as Google+ was when trying to use one of the Google properties that people actually liked.
You can practically hear the repugnant synergies twining and writhing in MS management’s heads like some unholy business-school twister orgy: All the linkedin users upsold on Office365/live accounts/Lync and all the Office and Outlook ‘cloud’ version users automatically LinkedIn unless the precise opt-out incantations are carefully adhered to.
I’m still not seeing the 24 billion worth of synergy; but this doesn’t look like a generic ‘Yahoo buys something, runs it into the ground while looking confused’ op.
4 Likes
What, you want that shit to be paid as TAXES?
1 Like
Can someone with an understanding of microeconomics and business explain to me why Microsoft felt that 26x10^9 USD was somehow better spent on acquiring LinkedIn than…well, basically any else? Bonus likes* for anyone who can explain to me how the hell LinkedIn is worth 26x10^9 USD.
*Okay, hearts. I’ll give you hearts.
5 Likes
I’m not sure I can explain it in dollars, but maybe in terms of data correlation. One of the examples a M$oft exec gave in an interview today was along the lines of: “imagine if LinkedIn knew all of your Outlook meetings and could serve up related content based on the companies and people you were meeting with.” Then much talk about “convenience”, because the user wouldn’t have to search for all that information manually.
There’s some hefty data mining potential there.
4 Likes
I lack the requested understanding of business, so am just spitballing for the “fun” of it:
-
LinkedIn has about 100 million monthly active users (and more than 400 million in all), so the purchase price works out to about $290 for each monthly active user, or a less spectacular $70ish for each registered user.
-
Facebook has 1.23 billion monthly active users, and its market cap is about $300 billion.
-
Coincidentally, or not, Facebook’s market cap works out to about $245 per monthly active user.
All these numbers seem insane to me. That FB and LinkedIn, but especially FB, have so many users; that social networking users are valued so highly by the people who put values on these things. Can’t believe it’s not a bubble.
6 Likes
Okay, so this question is for both you and @tropo: how does this enhanced granularity* of user data help Microsoft’s bottom line?
*Business-speak bingo! Fun for the whole family!
3 Likes
Don’t make me say “leverage” or “synergy”. (Darn it, I need to wash my mouth out with beer. BRB.)
2 Likes
For ‘synergy’, you’re going to need something stronger than beer.
3 Likes
Rest assured none of this money will end up in off shore tax free havens, because that hole has been totally filled now.
Ya, LinkedIn seems to be really good at that… I created a junk account once with an email that I have only used for other throw-away stuff, and it still manages to recommend folks that I work with and otherwise related professionals – my throwaway has me listed as “chief nerd” at an old construction company. I’m assuming that it formed the correlation based on me logging in from a work IP, but perhaps it has other means.
6 Likes
If you installed an app for it on your Android phone (couldn’t say about iOS), there’s a better than even chance Android shared the contacts from your Google logon on the phone. Android tried to out me to work via an unrelated-to-my-email app I installed on my phone.
