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Now We Know Why Microsoft Bought LinkedIn

Six months after Microsoft announced plans to pay more than $26 billion for LinkedIn, we now know even more about why the career-focused social networking site was so valuable. Today, Microsoft revealed that LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman has joined its board. It’s impossible to overestimate the significance of this move for Microsoft. CEO Satya Nadella is three years into a turnaround that few people believed possible. When he was promoted to CEO in February 2014, Microsoft was in a bad place. Six months earlier, the company had posted its first-ever quarterly loss. Steve Ballmer announced he would step down, but before leaving, he pushed through the acquisition of Nokia. It was a costly mistake. Microsoft ended up paying $7.9 billion for the Finnish cellphone maker, according to an April 2015 SEC filing; the company wrote off nearly the entire sum in the final quarter of 2015.

Microsoft’s chief problem was this: Though the Redmond-ites made a lot of money, the company’s core business was declining, a dynamic that was set in motion more than a decade ago, when nearly every enterprise owned and ran Windows-powered PCs and servers. Microsoft had parked itself in the middle of Innovator Dilemma-land. The company had little incentive to invest in future businesses that might disrupt the business it was already in.

It also had a lousy reputation, particularly in Silicon Valley, where camaraderie and collaboration are hallmarks of tech’s evolution and every major player enjoys frenemy status with its adversaries. Microsoft wasn’t a company that partnered with outsiders. It scorned the open-source community and looked down its nose at tech upstarts. In a public conversation with Marc Andreessen in October 2014, investor Peter Thiel called Microsoft a bet “against technological innovation.”

In an early analyst call, Nadella quoted philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, telling listeners that Microsoft must have “courage in the face of reality.” Three years later, this courage is paying off. Microsoft has been profitable for the last four quarters, and in January, it surpassed analyst expectations, doubling its revenue from its cloud-computing offering, Azure. Its search engine, Bing, has a hold on one fifth of the search market (even more, if you add AOL and Yahoo search, which are powered by Bing). With the launch of Microsoft Teams, it has aimed squarely at competitor Slack. It’s well on its way to transforming into a company that sells services in the cloud. Meanwhile, it has put $35 billion toward R&D for ambitious projects such as its mixed reality headset, the HoloLens, attempting to establish itself as a company that can bring credible innovations to market.

To succeed, however, Nadella must do more than fix the company’s business. He must turn around Microsoft’s lethargic, boastful, go-it-alone reputation — especially in clubby Silicon Valley where deals are made over dinners, the most talented entrepreneurs have their pick of big-name investors, and talent is hard to woo. In the constant competition over engineers, designers and product managers, Microsoft must establish itself as a smart place to do great work. In other words, in Silicon Valley it’s gotta be cool.

There’s no doubt Nadella has improved the company’s relationship with developers, partners, and investors outside its Redmond headquarters—particularly with those in the Valley. The company made peace with the open-source community, and one of its top engineers even said it wasn’t out of the question that one day Microsoft could open-source the code that underpins the company’s Windows operating system, its crown jewels. Nadella has also spent the past few years getting to know the startup founders the company once ignored. In October 2014, I went to hear him speak at a developers’ conference in London and witnessed firsthand the new amiable approach he was advancing. Since then, he has only amplified his efforts. But even if they’ve enjoyed a warmer reception in recent years, Nadella’s team of top executives and board members are, for the most part, not valley insiders. (The exception would be former Symantec CEO John Thompson, who chairs Microsoft’s board and helped with many Valley introductions early on.)

Reid Hoffman

Enter Reid Hoffman. Hoffman earned his credentials over two decades of startup building and nurturing. He started the very first social networking website, Socialnet.com, back in 1997 when Mark Zuckerberg was still in middle school. He met Facebook’s plucky founder before the kid dropped out of Harvard, and he helped broker the startup’s first $500,000 investment (kicking in $40,000 of his own). He was a founding board member at PayPal, and helped start LinkedIn back when most execs thought the idea of exposing your little black book was career suicide. LinkedIn now lays claim to more than 400 million members. In 2010, Hoffman joined venture firm Greylock, managing a seed fund that has invested in Groupon, Dropbox, Pandora, Tumblr, Shopkick, and Airbnb, where he’s a board observer. His list of for-profit and nonprofit board seats is lengthy.

There are few people in Silicon Valley as connected to its heart as Hoffman. In fact, Hoffman may be the Valley’s heart—a rhythmic muscle responsible for the optimal circulation that keeps it in good health. With a phone call or an email, Hoffman can get just about anyone in tech within minutes. He knows who to call. And in a competitive industry, he has gained his reputation through trading favors. He’s the quintessential nice guy. A few years ago, I called up entrepreneurs to ask them about Hoffman for a profile that never ran. Serial entrepreneur Bret Taylor told me, “He spent so much time just being a nice guy, and it made me think I have to be that way, too.”

At the time, I asked Peter Thiel what made Hoffman tick. “Once years ago, the question came up about the meaning of life,” Thiel told me then. “He said he thought it had something to do with the relationships you build along the way.”

Hoffman and Nadella met shortly after Nadella was appointed Microsoft’s CEO. “He was tapping me as the Silicon Valley expert, and I was tapping him as the leader of this massive technology company that had a huge amount of impact on how corporations and organizations worked,” Hoffman told me in an interview when the LinkedIn acquisition was announced. Increasingly, their conversations turned to leadership issues. Hoffman was impressed by the culture Nadella was building at Microsoft.

As a board member, Hoffman will be Microsoft’s ambassador in the Valley. Among a core group of constituents for whom Microsoft may not factor into conversation, Hoffman will work to raise its profile. The trickle-down effect has the potential to be tremendous as Microsoft competes for partners and talent.

The importance of reputation to a successful turnaround cannot be understated. As evidenced by Uber’s recent debacles, reputations are stubbornly difficult to dislodge. Even if a business has a sound foundation, how people view it will have a strong impact on whether it can succeed. And when Reid Hoffman calls an entrepreneur or an engineer on behalf of Microsoft, you can bet they will take it more positively.

Microsoft’s Acquisition of LinkedIn

• First Online: 30 November 2018

Cite this chapter

• B. Rajesh Kumar 2  

Part of the book series: Management for Professionals ((MANAGPROF))

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On June 13, 2016, Microsoft Corp and LinkedIn entered into a definitive agreement under which Microsoft acquired LinkedIn for $196 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at $26.2 billion. Microsoft paid $196 per share in cash which represented a 50% premium over LinkedIn’s closing price before announcement. This amounted to $9 billion premium which was paid to LinkedIn’s market value. Microsoft paid $196 per share in cash which represented a 50% premium over LinkedIn’s closing price before announcement. This amounted to $9 billion premium which was paid to LinkedIn’s market value. The new deal meant that Microsoft could embed LinkedIn with Skype, its email system and other enterprise products. Microsoft acquired one of the world’s most influential, specialized, highly read and constantly updated digital media company. LinkedIn had 433 million users with more than a quarter of them in the United States alone. Microsoft’s largest ever acquisition was aimed to fit into a strategy of building up the Microsoft Office suite of workplace productivity products and its cloud computing business. Synergy from the deal was expected through the integration of LinkedIn Sales Navigator tool for sales representatives into Microsoft’s customer relationship management tool, Dynamics.

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Kumar, B.R. (2019). Microsoft’s Acquisition of LinkedIn. In: Wealth Creation in the World’s Largest Mergers and Acquisitions. Management for Professionals. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02363-8_27

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Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn

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REDMOND, Wash., and MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — June 13, 2016 — Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) and LinkedIn Corporation (NYSE: LNKD) on Monday announced they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Microsoft will acquire LinkedIn for $196 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at $26.2 billion, inclusive of LinkedIn’s net cash. LinkedIn will retain its distinct brand, culture and independence. Jeff Weiner will remain CEO of LinkedIn, reporting to Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft. Reid Hoffman, chairman of the board, co-founder and controlling shareholder of LinkedIn, and Weiner both fully support this transaction. The transaction is expected to close this calendar year.

LinkedIn is the world’s largest and most valuable professional network and continues to build a strong and growing business. Over the past year, the company has launched a new version of its mobile app that has led to increased member engagement; enhanced the LinkedIn newsfeed to deliver better business insights; acquired a leading online learning platform called Lynda.com to enter a new market; and rolled out a new version of its Recruiter product to its enterprise customers. These innovations have resulted in increased membership, engagement and financial results, specifically:

• 19 percent growth year over year (YOY) to more than 433 million members worldwide
• 9 percent growth YOY to more than 105 million unique visiting members per month
• 49 percent growth YOY to 60 percent mobile usage
• 34 percent growth YOY to more than 45 billion quarterly member page views
• 101 percent growth YOY to more than 7 million active job listings

“The LinkedIn team has grown a fantastic business centered on connecting the world’s professionals,” Nadella said. “Together we can accelerate the growth of LinkedIn, as well as Microsoft Office 365 and Dynamics as we seek to empower every person and organization on the planet.”

“Just as we have changed the way the world connects to opportunity, this relationship with Microsoft, and the combination of their cloud and LinkedIn’s network, now gives us a chance to also change the way the world works,” Weiner said. “For the last 13 years, we’ve been uniquely positioned to connect professionals to make them more productive and successful, and I’m looking forward to leading our team through the next chapter of our story.”

The transaction has been unanimously approved by the Boards of Directors of both LinkedIn and Microsoft. The deal is expected to close this calendar year and is subject to approval by LinkedIn’s shareholders, the satisfaction of certain regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.

“Today is a re-founding moment for LinkedIn. I see incredible opportunity for our members and customers and look forward to supporting this new and combined business,” said Hoffman. “I fully support this transaction and the Board’s decision to pursue it, and will vote my shares in accordance with their recommendation on it.”

Microsoft will finance the transaction primarily through the issuance of new indebtedness. Upon closing, Microsoft expects LinkedIn’s financials to be reported as part of Microsoft’s Productivity and Business Processes segment. Microsoft expects the acquisition to have minimal dilution of ~1 percent to non-GAAP earnings per share for the remainder of fiscal year 2017 post-closing and for fiscal year 2018 based on the expected close date, and become accretive to Microsoft’s non-GAAP earnings per share in Microsoft’s fiscal year 2019 or less than two years post-closing. Non-GAAP includes stock-based compensation expense consistent with Microsoft’s reporting practice, and excludes expected impact of purchase accounting adjustments as well as integration and transaction-related expenses. In addition, Microsoft also reiterated its intention to complete its existing $40 billion share repurchase authorization by Dec. 31, 2016, the same timeframe as previously committed.

Microsoft and LinkedIn will host a joint conference call with investors on June 13, 2016, at 8:45 a.m. Pacific Time/11:45 a.m. Eastern Time to discuss this transaction. The call will be available via webcast at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Investor and will be hosted by Nadella and Weiner, as well as Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood and Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith. The presentation for the call is available on the Microsoft News Center.

Morgan Stanley is acting as exclusive financial advisor to Microsoft, and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP is acting as legal advisor to Microsoft. Qatalyst Partners and Allen & Company LLC are acting as financial advisors to LinkedIn, while Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Professional Corporation, is acting as legal advisor.

About LinkedIn

LinkedIn connects the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful and transforms the way companies hire, market, and sell. Our vision is to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce through the ongoing development of the world’s first Economic Graph. LinkedIn has more than 400 million members and has offices around the globe .

About Microsoft

Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) is the leading platform and productivity company for the mobile-first, cloud-first world, and its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

Additional Information and Where to Find It

In connection with the transaction, LinkedIn Corporation (the “Company”) will file relevant materials with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), including a proxy statement on Schedule 14A. Promptly after filing its definitive proxy statement with the SEC, the Company will mail the definitive proxy statement and a proxy card to each stockholder entitled to vote at the special meeting relating to the transaction. INVESTORS AND SECURITY HOLDERS OF THE COMPANY ARE URGED TO READ THESE MATERIALS (INCLUDING ANY AMENDMENTS OR SUPPLEMENTS THERETO) AND ANY OTHER RELEVANT DOCUMENTS IN CONNECTION WITH THE TRANSACTION THAT THE COMPANY WILL FILE WITH THE SEC WHEN THEY BECOME AVAILABLE BECAUSE THEY WILL CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT THE COMPANY AND THE TRANSACTION. The definitive proxy statement, the preliminary proxy statement and other relevant materials in connection with the transaction (when they become available), and any other documents filed by the Company with the SEC, may be obtained free of charge at the SEC’s website (http://www.sec.gov) or at LinkedIn’s website (http://investors.linkedin.com) or by writing to LinkedIn Corporation, Investor Relations, 2029 Stierlin Court, Mountain View, California 94043.

The Company and its directors and executive officers are participants in the solicitation of proxies from the Company’s stockholders with respect to the transaction. Information about the Company’s directors and executive officers and their ownership of the Company’s common stock is set forth in the Company’s proxy statement on Schedule 14A filed with the SEC on April 22, 2016. To the extent that holdings of the Company’s securities have changed since the amounts printed in the Company’s proxy statement, such changes have been or will be reflected on Statements of Change in Ownership on Form 4 filed with the SEC. Information regarding the identity of the participants, and their direct or indirect interests in the transaction, by security holdings or otherwise, will be set forth in the proxy statement and other materials to be filed with SEC in connection with the transaction.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 with respect to the proposed transaction and business combination between Microsoft and LinkedIn, including statements regarding the benefits of the transaction, the anticipated timing of the transaction and the products and markets of each company. These forward-looking statements generally are identified by the words “believe,” “project,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “estimate,” “intend,” “strategy,” “future,” “opportunity,” “plan,” “may,” “should,” “will,” “would,” “will be,” “will continue,” “will likely result,” and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are predictions, projections and other statements about future events that are based on current expectations and assumptions and, as a result, are subject to risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause actual future events to differ materially from the forward-looking statements in this press release, including but not limited to: (i) the risk that the transaction may not be completed in a timely manner or at all, which may adversely affect LinkedIn’s business and the price of the common stock of LinkedIn, (ii) the failure to satisfy the conditions to the consummation of the transaction, including the adoption of the merger agreement by the stockholders of LinkedIn and the receipt of certain governmental and regulatory approvals, (iii) the occurrence of any event, change or other circumstance that could give rise to the termination of the merger agreement, (iv) the effect of the announcement or pendency of the transaction on LinkedIn’s business relationships, operating results, and business generally, (v) risks that the proposed transaction disrupts current plans and operations of LinkedIn or Microsoft and potential difficulties in LinkedIn employee retention as a result of the transaction, (vi) risks related to diverting management’s attention from LinkedIn’s ongoing business operations, (vii) the outcome of any legal proceedings that may be instituted against us or against LinkedIn related to the merger agreement or the transaction, (viii) the ability of Microsoft to successfully integrate LinkedIn’s operations, product lines, and technology, and (ix) the ability of Microsoft to implement its plans, forecasts, and other expectations with respect to LinkedIn’s business after the completion of the proposed merger and realize additional opportunities for growth and innovation. In addition, please refer to the documents that Microsoft and LinkedIn file with the SEC on Forms 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K. These filings identify and address other important risks and uncertainties that could cause events and results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements set forth in this press release. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made. Readers are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements, and Microsoft and LinkedIn assume no obligation and do not intend to update or revise these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at http://news.microsoft.com . Web links, telephone numbers and titles were correct at time of publication, but may have changed. For additional assistance, journalists and analysts may contact Microsoft’s Rapid Response Team or other appropriate contacts listed at https://news.microsoft.com/microsoft-public-relations-contacts .

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Is the LinkedIn Acquisition Microsoft’s Attempt to Build Its Own Alphabet?

• Benjamin Gomes-Casseres

Understanding the three types of acquisitions.

Microsoft’s acquisition of LinkedIn is big and bold — and likely to be consequential. Precisely how consequential and in what way is still a puzzle to observers.

• Benjamin Gomes-Casseres is an expert in alliance strategy and the Peter A. Petri Professor of Business and Society at Brandeis University. He has been studying, teaching, and consulting on the strategy of business combinations for thirty years, and is the author of three books including Remix Strategy: The Three Laws of Business Combinations (HBR Press, 2015). To learn more about the ideas and tools he has developed, visit remixstrategy.com .

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• Case Studies , Harvard Business Review , Technology Alliances (MA)

Three Types of Acquisitions — Lessons from Microsoft and LinkedIn

By Ben Gomes-Casseres |  Originally in HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW  |

Microsoft’s acquisition of LinkedIn is big and bold — and likely to be consequential. Precisely how consequential and in what way is still a puzzle to observers.

One reason for the uncertainty is that we don’t know yet what kind of acquisition this is. I see three possibilities, each with its own rationale and trajectory.

One type of acquisition is the strategic remix . In this model, the acquired assets and capabilities are combined with existing assets to generate new business or to save costs. Is this what Microsoft and LinkedIn are doing?

Possibly, but the concrete synergies are hard to see, especially considering the $9 billion premium that Microsoft is paying over LinkedIn’s market value as of last week. The only numbers we have so far is that the companies expect $150 million in annual savings by 2018 . Beyond that, there are vague tech-speak promises of how LinkedIn’s social network might help Microsoft’s enterprise businesses. Investors can be excused for being puzzled at the numbers.

Perhaps Microsoft is not touting the value-creation potential of a strategic remix because it has just come off a big failure with that model. The company’s 2014 acquisition of Nokia’s mobile phone assets was intended to create added value by combining these hardware assets with Microsoft’s software and services. It didn’t happen. Microsoft ended up writing down the Nokia acquisition just a few years later.

LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner may have had this Microsoft experience in mind when he assured his employees that their new owner would grant LinkedIn “independence.” That, he said, is what sold him on the deal. This implies that a full and close integration of services and software is explicitly being ruled out at this point.

A second type of acquisition thrives on such independence: private equity acquisitions. The model here is to buy low and hope to sell high after injecting the business with resources. PE firms usually do not seek to combine assets of different businesses, and usually use leverage to back up their investment. Is that what Microsoft is up to?

In fact, Microsoft is funding its acquisition entirely with new debt, even though it has $100 billion in cash. Why? No doubt because it can. With interest rates on government debt hovering near zero around the world, Microsoft can get credit cheaply.

And despite the hefty premium above LinkedIn’s current share price, Microsoft is buying low. It is buying LinkedIn stock at $196, roughly what it traded for a year or so ago. Since then LinkedIn suffered some difficult quarters, leading to a steep decline in its share price earlier this year. Is it so hard to imagine that Microsoft is getting a deal?

The last feature of PE acquisitions is that they take the target firm off the market, where it can be managed out of the public eye. That is not strictly the case here, but there is no doubt that LinkedIn will be somewhat insulated from the markets, being buried in Microsoft’s overall business that is almost 15 times its size in terms of market value.

But if Microsoft were following the PE model, it would not try to convince investors of the aforementioned product synergies. And, frankly, a pure PE approach would not be consistent with Satya Nadella’s efforts to forge a new strategy for Microsoft. The company is just not in the business of selling off businesses, even if it does still like to buy low.

There is a third acquisition model that in a way is a hybrid of the strategic remix and the private equity models. It’s the Google model – or rather the Alphabet model. In this strategy, the company acquires businesses or technologies that have promise but are still risky, and it nurtures them to see where they lead. It is a bit of an options game, but the idea is to keep the businesses relatively independent and to provide them with capital and management that may coax them to fly higher.

It is striking that in his letter to employees, LinkedIn’s CEO cites Google’s acquisition of YouTube as a model for his deal. That acquisition folded YouTube into Google but allowed the video company to e xist relatively independently of other Google businesses , with some sharing of data, logins, and other features. Other Alphabet businesses are even more independent.

If that is Microsoft’s intent with LinkedIn, then this deal is the first installment of Microsoft’s own “alphabet.” The company may be creating a collection of businesses that are distinct from each other but support the same broad vision.

And, if it works, the collection could expand. Skype, acquired by Microsoft in 2011, would fit this strategy, as could future acquisitions – even Salesforce.com, which was thought to be on Microsoft’s radar before the LinkedIn deal came down. (Remember: credit is still cheap.)

How would Microsoft manage this collection of businesses? Differently from its core business, that’s for sure. Microsoft’s core is a huge annuity based on a dominant market share. The reason to have an array of related but independent businesses is to manage them as options on future growth. They can be made to play with the core when it makes sense, but they can otherwise be “independent,” the term so loved by LinkedIn’s team.

For a Microsoft traditionally steeped in tight integration and control, such an organizational strategy would be a real innovation.

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Microsoft and LinkedIn share latest data and innovation for hybrid work

Sep 9, 2021 | Jared Spataro - CVP, AI at Work

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This morning Satya  Nadella  and Ryan  Roslan sky , the CEO of LinkedIn,   sat down  to talk about the  key secular trends   they’re  seeing as  people and organizations  everywhere  adjust to  hybrid work .   Their conversation  is part of  a n  effort  between  Microsoft and LinkedIn to help leaders  and their teams  navigate this new world of work, and here I’ll share  more about the trends we’re seeing, the  data behind them  and  the   product updates we ’ re announcing  today across Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Viva and LinkedIn .   

As Satya and Ryan mentioned, the evolving Delta variant is compelling many of us to adjust plans for reopening worksites. It’s a stark reminder that  this is the new normal. Our ability to come together will ebb and flow.  In fact, we had planned for Oct. 4 to be the first possible date to fully reopen Microsoft’s own Redmond headquarters, and many other work sites in the U.S. But as we shared with our employees today, we’ve shifted those plans. Given the uncertainty of COVID-19, we’ve decided against attempting to forecast a new date for a full reopening of our U.S. work sites in favor of opening U.S. work sites as soon as we’re able to do so safely based on public health guidance. From there, we’ll communicate a 30-day transition period that provides time for employees to prepare while allowing us to continue to be agile and flexible as we look to the data and make choices to protect employee health, safety and well-being.  

We’ve heard many business leaders come forward with strong opinions on how,  when and where people should work in a hybrid world. At Microsoft and LinkedIn, we want to take a learn-it-all approach, and lead with data rather than dogma . And we’re incorporating flexibility into our decision-making. Because in uncharted territory, we need to be able to shift and adjust as data and research offer new insights to guide our way.   

The Hybrid Work Paradox and the ‘Great Reshuffle’  

A report out today on our  Work Trend Index shares what we’re learning from Microsoft employees in over 100 countries around the world. Employee surveys tell us that while hybrid work is complex, embracing flexibility, different work styles and a culture of trust can help us all navigate it successfully. In a year when we sent 160,000 people home to work and remotely onboarded 25,000 new employees, the share of people who report feeling included at Microsoft is at an all-time high of 90%. According to surveys, employee confidence and support from our managers is also at an all-time high. While there is still so much more we can do in our culture journey at Microsoft – and we’d love to see these numbers even higher – this data show that we don’t have to be physically together to feel like we’re in it together.  

But there’s no guarantee that these positive trends will continue in hybrid, and difficulties remain. As we navigate remote work during a pandemic, our employee surveys show continued challenges to satisfaction with work-life balance and team connection.  

While we hope hybrid work will help us improve in these areas, finding the balance will be complex. Our ongoing  research  shows employees crave more in-person time with their team but wish to keep the flexibility of remote work. And every person is different – 58% of employees who plan to spend the most and least time in-office are doing it for the same reason: more focused work. And there are gaps to fill – managers plan to spend a higher share of their time in-office than non-managerial employees (45% vs. 39%). Moreover, employees surveyed plan to go into the office more than managers expect. This complexity is what Satya calls the  Hybrid Work Paradox .  

Solving the Hybrid Work Paradox will be the challenge of the decade. We need policies and technology tuned for flexibility, but policies and technology alone are not enough. Every leader must also ask: How do I rebuild social capital and connection back to mission, culture and team? How do I help people prioritize individual well-being and work in sustainable ways? As Satya has said:  “Our new data shows there is no one-size-fits-all approach to hybrid work, as employee expectations continue to change. The only way for organizations to solve for this complexity is  to embrace flexibility across their entire operating model,  including the ways people work, the places they inhabit and how they approach business process.”  

All of this will be key to navigating this moment of change that  our colleagues at LinkedIn are calling the “Great Reshuffle.”  Leaders are rethinking their working models, cultures and company values, while at the same time, employees are rethinking not only how and where they work, but  why . At the core of it all is the start of a new, more dynamic relationship between employers and employees.  

To better understand how employers are thinking about navigating this new world of work,  LinkedIn surveyed more than 500 C-level executives  in the U.S. and U.K. Top of mind for executives is the same thing on the minds of employees – flexibility. With  87% of people saying they would prefer  to stay remote at least half the time, a majority of employers are adapting: 81% of leaders are changing their workplace policies to offer greater flexibility.   

Despite all the change, leaders feel like there are opportunities ahead – more than half (58%) are optimistic that flexibility will be good for both people and the business. Leaders have an opportunity to rewrite their playbook when it comes to hiring, skills development, engaging talent and more.   

Employers and employees have an opportunity to build new relationships grounded in shared values and a common mission. And more people will be doing work that best matches their skills and needs, leading to greater success for organizations that   engage their employees with empathy and trust .  But the data also underscores the imperative for business leaders to transform themselves to attract and retain top talent as employee expectations evolve.    

Taken together, the Hybrid Work Paradox and the Great Reshuffle are creating fundamental changes in the global labor market. Ultimately, no one can predict how things will shake out. But history has shown us that there is always opportunity in turbulent times.   

Companies that are adaptable and able to continuously innovate will have the advantage. To really compete, however, they’ll need to enable sustainable productivity for their employees. Right now, the  power has shifted from employer to employee, and people will vote with their feet.  As conditions change, this pendulum of power will continue to swing in both directions, but two constants remain: First: as Satya said above, every leader and every organization will need to create a new operating model across people, places and processes. And second: those companies with a better employee experience for all employees – from the virtual boardroom to the factory floor – will be the ones to  attract and retain better talent.   

How technology can help   

Microsoft and LinkedIn are navigating the challenges and opportunities of hybrid work just like every other organization. We see the role of technology as an enabler – helping our employees and our customers as they transform for hybrid work and reimagine everything from meetings that transcend space and time to a digital employee experience that everyone can access from anywhere – right in the flow of their work.   

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Helping  every organization have better  hybrid meetings  

Right now, every leader is grappling with how to have effective hybrid meetings, often with limited equipment and resources. Hybrid meetings are an entirely new kind of meeting and require rethinking how we approach and conduct them to ensure we’re putting every attendee on equal footing, no matter where they’re sitting.   

We can all start making hybrid meetings better today with a few good habits, like making sure in-person meeting rooms have a centralized audio device; encouraging everyone to join the Teams meeting – with the camera on – and appointing an in-room moderator to facilitate conversation by monitoring the chat, raise hands feature, and participants unmuting themselves to speak.  

New cultural meeting norms are key, but technology can help take the hybrid meeting experience to the next level. Today, we’re announcing new Microsoft Teams Rooms innovations, along with new Teams features, to help you have impactful, engaging hybrid meetings where everyone feels included.   

New Teams Rooms innovations  

The next wave in Teams Rooms innovation will include a new category of AI-enabled cameras. There are three unique technologies that power this new category of intelligent cameras. The first is  AI-powered active speaker tracking , enabling in-room cameras to use audio, facial movements and gestures to detect who in the room is speaking – zooming in for a closer perspective. The next is  multiple video streams  that allow in-room participants to be placed in their own video pane. The third is  people recognition , which will identify and display the profile name of enrolled users within their video pane.   

New hybrid meeting features  

To make remote presentations more engaging, we’re announcing  cameo,  a new PowerPoint experience that integrates the Teams camera feed into a presentation to allow the presenter to customize how and where they want to appear on the screen with their slides. As we work to create an inclusive hybrid work culture, where all voices can be heard,  speaker coach  in Microsoft Teams uses AI to privately share guidance on your pace, notify you if you are interrupting someone and remind you to check in with your audience.  

Planning and understanding who will be attending and how they will attend is also key ,  and today we are announcing a new  Outlook RSVP  feature that lets people specify whether they will attend in person or remotely. The redesigned  Working hours  will allow you to include work schedule specifics directly in your calendar, so others can know when and where you’ll be working as we adjust to more flexible work hours and locations.   

A digital employee experience – right in the flow of work  

Going forward, the digital employee experience  is  the employee experience. Today, we are announcing the public preview of the Microsoft Viva Connections mobile app, available later this month. Viva Connections provides a single employee app for company communications, news and announcements – all in a personalized feed right in Teams, powered by Microsoft 365. Organizations can customize the dashboard with additional apps to empower employees, making it easier to find useful resources and complete tasks like submitting expense reports, requesting time off from work, or clocking in and out. Powered by adaptive cards, dashboard items can be targeted to specific groups of employees so everyone can stay connected and engaged wherever and however they work.  

Our already available  Return to the Workplace solution, built on the Power Platform, gives organizations a set of Power Apps and Power BI dashboards to keep employees safe – including vaccine attestation, case management, health screening, facility safety management and more. It’s a turnkey solution that can also seamlessly integrate with existing third-party apps an organization may already have in place. All these solutions are easily incorporated into the Viva Connections experience.   

Flexible, safe workspaces for a hybrid workforce  

With an increasingly mobile workforce, it’s important for organizations to be able to offer a space for employees who need workspaces where they can touch down either for the day or just a couple of hours to get work done. We’re announcing a  new hotdesking  experience on Microsoft Teams displays that allow people to locate and reserve flexible workspaces in the office. Employees can book a space from the device or in advance using Outlook or Teams and access their personal Teams calendar, chats, meetings and more. Teams displays can be used as a stand-alone device or as a second screen when hot desking. When an employee signs out, all personal information will be removed from the device.  

For more of today’s Teams announcements, please check out  the Microsoft 365 blog .    

Giving people more choices in how they want to work  

To help employers and hiring managers adapt to this new world of work, LinkedIn is rolling out new fields within job postings where organizations can now signal if the open job is remote, hybrid or on-site, helping job seekers search and discover jobs that align with how they want to work. And coming soon,  LinkedIn will also have a way for companies to share how they are approaching the future of work on their company page including vaccination requirements, if they plan to go back to an office, stay remote or go hybrid.  

Free LinkedIn Learning courses   

Investing in new skills is crucial to thriving in today’s workplace –  be it in-person, remote or hybrid. To help, LinkedIn has made nearly 40 LinkedIn Learning courses free until Oct. 9, 2021 so that LinkedIn members and HR pros can build critical skills. Whether you’re looking to  support your team through the transition to hybrid work  or be the  kind of manager no one wants to leave , these courses can help you lead through change.   

An intelligent skill-building platform to help employers invest in their greatest asset  – their people  

People are rediscovering how they find meaning and purpose in their lives and at work, and responding by seeking out new opportunities. Leaders, meanwhile, are facing new challenges in retaining and reskilling their people to meet the demands of our new world of work. To navigate these changes, LinkedIn’s skill-building platform, LinkedIn Learning Hub, will be generally available in two weeks. It will help companies build their employees’ skills through personalized content, community-based learning and skill-development insights that will  i nform their overall learning and development strategy.

Our commitment to customers around the world  

Meeting employee expectations, not just to attract and to retain talent, but to enable personal well-being, will be a challenge for every leader and every organization. But if we embrace the data, listen to our employees and customers and incorporate flexibility into everything we do, we believe we can create a better future of work. At Microsoft and LinkedIn, we’ll continue to use what we’re learning to build and improve products designed to empower people for the ways we work today and the ways we’ll work in the future. And we’ll continue sharing what we learn along the way.   

Tags: hybrid workplace , LinkedIn , Microsoft 365 , Microsoft Teams , Microsoft Viva

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Microsoft Acquires LinkedIn for $26.2 Billion: Why and Why Did LinkedIn Accept?

Originally published by Sramana Mitra on LinkedIn: Microsoft Acquires LinkedIn for $26.2 Billion: Why and Why Did LinkedIn Accept?

In a singularly brilliant move, Microsoft just announced the acquisition of LinkedIn for $26.2 billion. Two questions are swirling in people’s minds: why, and why did LinkedIn sell?

Let’s do the why first.

Tech has become a 5-horse race: Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft being the five horses fighting for dominance of Techdom. Google dominates Search and Mobile; Apple dominates mobile; Amazon dominates Commerce and Cloud; Facebook dominates Social; and Microsoft, despite its size, dominates nothing.

That can’t go on, if Microsoft wants to be in that 5-horse race, and win.

So, they have decided to acquire LinkedIn and get a key strategic position in Social.

However, their endgame is not Social , it is Cloud . Here’s why.

LinkedIn’s social network is of a professional nature. Most of this universe fits into the bucket of being enterprise cloud services users. I am using the word enterprise broadly, to include all businesses and organizations, including small businesses. I have long been of the opinion that LinkedIn’s asset – it’s incredible network – would monetize much better if they became a cloud services vendor, especially with an anchor position in CRM and related products. Imagine how powerful a combination Salesforce and LinkedIn would make with all the data in CRM being integrated fully with LinkedIn? The latter could charge a huge premium for that kind of CRM system.

Well, LinkedIn went in a different direction. Very interesting directions, including Media and Education, beyond its recruiting and marketing solutions. However, this move by Microsoft tells me that the Cloud Services strategy is something they do see, and it is the core idea behind this acquisition.

Why did LinkedIn sell?

LinkedIn has monetized largely with a freemium strategy. The problem is, today’s Internet is such a bastion of free riders, that any company banking on freemium has a hard time scaling. I think, LinkedIn came to realize this limitation, and when Microsoft came knocking, they chose to do the cloud services strategy within Microsoft, as opposed to independently. Culturally, LinkedIn is a media company. Cloud Services would be a significant cultural shift. For Microsoft, it will be a natural.

Watch what happens in CRM. Microsoft needs to fortify its CRM position and deeply integrate LinkedIn into it. Marketo recently was acquired by a private equity firm. That company would be a natural one to bolt onto the LinkedIn acquisition. I had thought that LinkedIn could start down the Cloud Services path by acquiring Marketo, and still stand by that recommendation.

Nothing hugely exciting has happened in Tech in a while. This deal injects energy into Microsoft, the weakest of the five top horses thus far. Let us see what they do with it.

Note: NYT has an interesting analysis on LinkedIn's compensation structure that is noteworthy. The issue, as I point out, is that LinkedIn's freemium business model isn't scaling. All the other issues emanate from that core trend.

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Photo courtesy: Aidan Jones

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5 reasons why the acquisition of LinkedIn is a great move for Microsoft

26.2 billion! That seems like a big ticket price, but Microsoft is getting a good deal. Here are the top reasons why the acquisition makes sense for Microsoft.

First , LinkedIn is undervalued. Even paying a 48% mark-up on the current stock price, Microsoft is still buying LinkedIn at less than its value on January 1 st , 2016. The markets have been hammering LinkedIn for not maintaining growth numbers in users and revenues. These criticisms are justified. LinkedIn has only recently woken up to leverage its massive network and move beyond being just a job search site. Microsoft will hopefully be able to better leverage LinkedIn’s impressive 400 million members.

Second , Microsoft was sitting on more than $100 Billion in cash and short-term investments. That’s a big weight on its balance sheet and the pressure to spend it or issue a special dividend, as it has done in the past, was mounting. Better to spend it than to lose it!

Third , it strengthens Microsoft’s position in the enterprise market segment. It makes little sense for Microsoft to invest in a consumer social media site like Snapchat when its core focus is on the enterprise space. Microsoft has been talking about building its social presence for some time. Its purchase of Yammer has not quite gone far enough. This acquisition will give it some social media street credit.

Fourth , LinkedIn is well aligned with Microsoft’s Dynamics Cloud business. Imagine the potent combination of Microsoft Dynamics and LinkedIn Sales Navigator? This acquisition is a direct challenge to the CRM market leader, Salesforce.

Fifth , LinkedIn is strong on mobile, where Microsoft continues to be weak, despite multiple attempts to grow. 60% of LinkedIn’s traffic originates from a mobile device. Microsoft could build on this core strength and adapt it to its other enterprise assets, such as Office 365.

Professor Mike Wade is Director of the Center for Digital Business Transformation, an IMD and Cisco initiative. He also directs IMD’s Orchestrating Winning Performance program

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Analysts: Synergies abound in Microsoft acquisition of LinkedIn

MediaTalk | Season 2 | Ep. 29 - Streaming Services, Linear Networks Kick Off 2024/25 NFL Showdown

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MediaTalk | Season 2 | Ep. 26 - Premier League Kicks Off

• 13 Jun, 2016 | 18:06
• Author Michael Kane Calvin Men
• Theme Technology, Media & Telecom

While MicrosoftCorp.'s proposed $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn Corp. drew a general bullish opinion, itsurprised most if not all analysts as well as the Street.

Analysts were quick to point out the synergies between theenterprise-oriented companies. Following news of the deal, LinkedIn's stockshot up, closing at $192.21 a share on June 13, compared to its $131.08 close onJune 10, marking a 46.64% increase.

S&P Global Market Intelligence analyst Scott Kessler said thevaluation by Microsoft was high but not unreasonable, given that shares ofLinkedIn were trading at $258.39 a share in November 2015.

Bulls such as CCS Insight Senior Vice President Martin Garnerhighlighted Microsoft's vision of a digital business based on collaborative andsocial tools.

"This move gives Microsoft access to the world's biggestprofessional social network at present — a worldwide platform with a positionthat Microsoft could not have built itself. It also brings the opportunity fordeep integration with a large number of Microsoft assets," Garner said.

Since Satya Nadella stepped in as CEO in early 2014, Microsoft hasundergone a facelift, shifting away from software and hardware to acloud-focused company. The company signed a deal to sell its  andcut jobs in itssmartphone hardware business.

For LinkedIn, the deal comes at a time when the company struggledto find its footing. The company's stock plummeted from $192.28 to $125.34 in February after itannounced weak guidance for the 2016 year. Under the deal, LinkedIn retains itsCEO Jeff Weiner and independence.

Microsoft is aiming to compete with other enterprise socialnetworks, such as FacebookInc.'s Facebook at Work and Slack, wrote Monness Crespi Hardt &Co analyst James Cakmak in a research note. LinkedIn offers the ability toleverage social messaging and comes with an already sizable user base.

"LinkedIn brings with it strong enterprise relationshipsacross over 40K customers that will enable Microsoft to not only deepenrelationships, but also create more dependency and stickiness in thebusiness," Cakmak said.

Yet not all analysts were completely sold on the deal. ThoughKessler said there were obvious synergies as far as marrying enterprise informationwith enterprise services, the company could have accomplished the same thingwith a broad partnership. Kessler further noted that the companyhas a history of marking large acquisitions that have disappointed investors.

"Very few deals of this size have lived up to the valuationspaid," Kessler said. "We'll see if Microsoft's able to do that."

• Michael Kane Calvin Men
• Technology, Media & Telecom

Was Microsoft's Acquisition Of LinkedIn A Success?

(Photo by studioEAST/Getty Images)

Was Microsoft's acquisition of LinkedIn a success? originally appeared on Quora : the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world .

Answer by Mario Peshev , CEO of DevriX and SME Digital Consultant, on Quora :

Microsoft’s acquisitions are always contradictory.

• Skype was acquired for 32 times their operating profit.
• Nokia was assimilated with innovation suppressed at the same time. When was the last time you saw someone using a Nokia device?

Skype did suffer from Microsoft’s acquisition in the short-term . 3rd party users relying on different clients were kicked out of their corresponding platforms. This impacted IT departments using Pidgin, Miranda, or imo by connecting different applications relying on various protocols.

Mobile users were abandoned for nearly a year - following a rebuild on both desktop and mobile and launching the web version of Skype. Skype for Business is a separate suite which isn’t compatible with their standard Skype app - leading to a major disconnect during conference and business calls (which was a reason for Zoom ’s success for video and audio conference calls).

Microsoft closed Skype’s office in Sweden in 2017 while it was still profitable. Their strategy isn’t directly related to growth and revenue - some of their moves are aligned to long-term goals or as a defense mechanism against competitors acquiring their products.

LinkedIn’s development has been stalled for several years now. Except for launching video, notifications are still horrid, groups are useless, premium plans for general users are not affordable.

LinkedIn is still growing - but primarily due to external factors .

• Twitter’s growth has declined drastically. The amount of spam and automatically posted content is far too much. The noise is just appalling.
• Facebook has been targeted primarily by consumer-oriented businesses. It’s advertising model has affected many last year. Data privacy concerns over the past month have caused a major drop in their valuation.
• Google Plus didn’t make it. It’s still alive but mainly on autopilot. It has an enormous potential given Google’s core suite, yet it lacks any focus or organization.
• Business alternatives like Xing never gained popularity in the US. AngelList lacks a good portion of LinkedIn’s features.

LinkedIn’s acquisition of Lynda was a good move - and LinkedIn users are often promoted free courses or discounts for their training program. The fact that a good number of Lynda’s courses are high quality is definitely a plus.

All things considered, LinkedIn has been reporting traction in their own network as of late 2016. A fraction of Facebook’s users migrate to LinkedIn for various of reasons - from personal branding through networking to developing new forms of business opportunities.

The platform is still chaotic . The web versions are broken across its numerous tiers. If Microsoft was serious about LinkedIn, they would have spent the time and effort to make the user experience seamless and interactive - drastically growing their user base and increasing the time spent on LinkedIn.

Is that happening? Not so much, we have yet to see how this will play out in 2018.

This question originally appeared on Quora - the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. You can follow Quora on Twitter , Facebook , and Google+ . More questions:

• Microsoft Acquires LinkedIn : What companies were bidding against Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn?
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Microsoft/LinkedIn: What the European Commission Said on the Competition Review of Digital Market Mergers

17 Pages Posted: 21 Jul 2017

Michele Giannino

Independent

Date Written: July 19, 2017

The European Commission has approved the Microsoft acquisition of LinkedIn under the condition of the implementation of two sets of behavioral remedies. By its decision in Microsoft/LinkedIn the Commission dealt with many issues concerning the competition review of merger operations in digital markets. It defined for the first time the relevant market for professional social networking services. It clarified in which circumstances the concentration of datasets in the hands of the merging parties may conduce to the finding that a notified merger ma significantly impede competition. It acknowledged that when privacy protection is an important competition parameter it should be taken into account in the competition assessment of mergers. It also found that the merger might cause anti-competitive conglomerate effects which were addressed by the remedies offered by the merging parties tabled suitable remedies. Lastly, the article compares Microsoft/LinkedIn with the previous decisions made by the Commission for the appraisal of digital market mergers.

Keywords: EU merger control, conglomerate mergers, Big Data, privacy protection and merger control, relevant market definition, digital markets

JEL Classification: K21, L4

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Michele Giannino (Contact Author)

Independent ( email ), do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on ssrn, paper statistics, related ejournals, european public law: eu ejournal.

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