Microsoft spends big to add the largest social
network for professionals to its business software and services arsenal.
Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion, and WhatsApp for $19 billion, while Google "only" spent $1.65 billion on YouTube, and Yahoo dropped $1.1 billion on Tumblr. Microsoft just put all those social media acquisitions to shame, announcing it will acquire business social network LinkedIn for $26.2 billion to take definitive control of how we all curate our online professional lives.
Microsoft will acquire LinkedIn for $196 per share, with LinkedIn
retaining its brand and CEO Jeff Weiner, who will now report to
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. This isn't Microsoft's first acquisition in
the enterprise social networking space; the company spent $1.2 billion
on enterprise collaboration software YammerFree at Yammer
in 2012. The tech giant buys LinkedIn at one of the company's weakest
moments since LinkedIn's initial public offering (IPO) in 2011; a few
months back the company's stock price plunged more 50 percent, but as
this acquisition shows, it wasn't time to write off LinkedIn just yet.
NYT coverage of the acquisition
NYT coverage of the acquisition
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