In what is the largest acquisition in the history of Microsoft the tech giant recently acquired professional networking site LinkedIn for $26.2 billion. With the significant investment in the social network, Microsoft seems to be hoping the new acquisition will help to turn around its recent struggles.
Satya Nadella, Chief Executive Officer for Microsoft, says the new deal will present new opportunities for the Microsoft Office Suite and for offerings on LinkedIn. In recent years, both Microsoft and LinkedIn had been perceived as companies that were struggling to keep up in an evolving tech market. But in combining Microsoft Office and LinkedIn, two tools used by a multitude of professionals around the world, Microsoft believes its merger of a professional cloud and professional network will bring exciting new opportunities to users everywhere.
What will Microsoft do with LinkedIn?
In the wake of the announcement, tech blogs and media outlets were already hotly debating how Microsoft would use LinkedIn in conjunction with its other services.
Nadella has already hinted that Microsoft Office and LinkedIn will become compatible with each other. Once this is the case, there are plenty of possibilities. For example, attendees at meetings or conferences could learn more about each other before the event by visiting their LinkedIn profile, which would be included as a link in the online calendar. Customer service and sales representatives who use Microsoft Dynamics CRM tool could learn more about customers by analyzing LinkedIn data, which will now be available to Microsoft.
Microsoft’s digital assistant tool, Cortana, could also be given some new functionality as a result of the acquisition. Giving Cortana digital access to LinkedIn data could create for a more personalized user experience.
How does the deal benefit LinkedIn?
On the LinkedIn side of things, the deal has the potential to turn around a growth pace that had been rapidly slowing down. LinkedIn stock prices saw a big jump after the announcement of the acquisition, which is already a good sign.
Many users have also complained that LinkedIn has always been a good idea with middling execution. Under the direction of Microsoft, there is the chance for many of LinkedIn’s tools to become much more intuitive.
Before the LinkedIn acquisition, Microsoft’s largest purchase had previously been Nokia handsets, a $9.4 billion acquisition in 2014. Now the company is determined to corner the professional networking market, and professionals across the world are paying close attention to what Microsoft does next.
