Microsoft sweet-talks EC antitrust bods over LinkedIn buy

Microsoft has offered "concessions" in return for letting its $26bn dollar acquisition of LinkedIn move ahead, according to officials from the European Commission. The officials refused to provide any further details over what those concessions were, however. The Commission is expected to decide whether to let the purchase of …

[Anonymous Coward]

Let them buy it but only if they fully opensource Windows.

[Doctor Syntax]

"Let them buy it but only if they fully opensource Windows."

No way. It'd be like a cancer finding its way into other code.

[Anonymous Coward]

While I have a LinkedIn account, I've never gotten any benefit from it. I can't imagine why I'd want to keep it once the borg Microsoft absorbs it.

[Doctor Syntax]

"by gaining ownership of LinkedIn's unique dataset of over 450 million professionals in more than 200 countries, Microsoft will be able to deny competitors access to that data, and in doing so obtain an unfair competitive advantage."

I'm sure everyone who gave away their data to LinkedIn could be persuaded to give it to any other site that might be set up, either by Salesforce or anyone else. "Unique" need only be a temporary description.

[Mark 110]

"I'm sure everyone who gave away their data to LinkedIn could be persuaded to give it to any other site that might be set up, either by Salesforce or anyone else. "Unique" need only be a temporary description."

Equally if Linkedin were to launch a CRM suite to compete with Salesforce or Dynamics, would the EU then have to launch an antitrust suite against Linkedin for having an unfair competitve advantage due to the data they already owned?

[inmypjs]

Please let them

Please let them have Linkedin - not worth anywhere near to what they are paying for it.

Let them mess it up like everything else they touch (no great loss) and hammer yet another self inflicted nail into their coffin.

[Mark 110]

Re: Please let them

Go to bed!!! And dream happy thoughts!!! Too much bitterness and hate in this world already and much worse things in this woorld than a software company :-(

Off to get Inmypjs too. Night all.

[BillG]

Re: Please let them

Murphy's Rule of Personal Data: "Once they have your personal information, they will ignore laws and EULAs and exploit it at will".

Also a Ferengi Rule of Acquisition.

[Norman Nescio]

Business benefit?

What business benefit are Microsoft expecting to obtain by gaining ownership of LinkedIn?

Given that Microsoft are spending money and other resources on this acquisition, there must, in Microsoft's view, be a pretty good reason. I don't believe LinkedIn are directly profitable, so Microsoft must be valuing pretty highly some kind of business advantage they believe they can gain. Quite what that is, I don't know - the purchase price puts a 'value' on the data held on each individual, and presumably, Microsoft are looking to monetize at least that amount. I wonder how?

Buying an something externally developed and integrating it into Microsoft's offerings has been a successful strategy for Microsoft in the past - both PowerPoint and Visio were not initially developed by Microsoft, and MS-DOS itself was a rebadged QDOS/86-DOS, bought from Seattle Computer Products. The strategy was less successful with the purchase of Nokia's phone business.

Perhaps Microsoft are looking to integrate a LinkedIn client into the Office contacts function, and want control of the back-end?

[Mark 110]

Re: Business benefit?

I would have thoughht the integration would be with Dynamics rather than Office. Which is why Salesforce are complaining annd why Salesforce also wanted to buy Linkedin.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Business benefit?

"Given that Microsoft are spending money and other resources on this acquisition, there must, in Microsoft's view, be a pretty good reason."

You could have said the same thing in relation to Nokia.

[anonymous boring coward]

So each LinkedIn account is worth $57.77.

But how many of these accounts are actually active, and of those, how many are with people who might be monetised by MS?

Seems at least 10x too expensive to me.

Especially when many will jump to another platform as soon as MS buys this one.

But I guess in the grand scheme of world domination perhaps it makes some sense. They will probably try to buy all competitors too.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Especially when many will jump to another platform as soon as MS buys this one."

Will they?

And which other one?

[Steve Davies 3]

already gone

As soon as the deal was announced, approval or not, I deleted my profile.

Linkedin was good once but has since deterioated into something that is IMHO worthless.

Go ahead MS, pay billions for something you have no idea how to make relevant in todays world.

[cambsukguy]

Re: already gone

Since I am one of those pointless accounts, it seems terribly overpriced.

Then I heard that Snapchat are worth just as much, according to some.

I just cannot see the value under any circumstances.

I would hope for their sake (I am not an MS hater as most are here), that they save the money.

But then, maybe it is not a Nokia, maybe there is a way to make money, or slow the competition or something worth that much.

[Anonymous Coward]

Crypto next

So they get all the information from the usual slurp channels and MS accounts, cross reference it against the business data from LinkedIn, build a relational model of much of the developed business world, launch their crypto currency for business with trust and validation links through the MS model.

Will be a beast of a system.

[Anonymous Coward]

Where's the Transparency???

"The officials refused to provide any further details over what those concessions were, however."...

Why?. ... Its like TTIP all done behind closed doors, nothing to see here!

[Badger Murphy]

Re: Where's the Transparency???

You don't need to ask why. If it is done in secret and behind closed doors, with refusal to share the details, it is ALWAYS because the details are terrible.

[cambsukguy]

Re: Where's the Transparency???

Laws and sausages, you do NOT want to see how they are made.

Add huge takeover agreements to the list.

And US presidents.

[Anonymous Coward]

LinkedIn.com shut me down twice this year for complaining about SECURITY issues!

I have been shut down by LinkedIn.com

I think it's becasue i purchased securelinkedin.com for my Secure Linked Inverness to Aberdeen A96.uk project with LoRaWAN with AES-ECB in hardware, they don't like real security in krap systems like LoRaWAN.

All my posts were MODERATED and 90% never got published.

CENSORSHIP is very ugly Micro$oft.

I hope you all have a good short life EXEC's & VP's & CEO's

You're just not helping people at all.

POLICE STATE SCOTLAND.