[{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BlogPosting","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2016\/06\/15\/microsoft-buys-linkedin\/#BlogPosting","mainEntityOfPage":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2016\/06\/15\/microsoft-buys-linkedin\/","headline":"Microsoft Buys LinkedIn: Looks good on paper, so why does it feel funny?","name":"Microsoft Buys LinkedIn: Looks good on paper, so why does it feel funny?","description":"The merger of Microsoft and LinkedIn \u2013 a marriage of professional solutions with enterprise software \u2013 could become a victim of its own size.","datePublished":"2016-06-15","dateModified":"2021-09-12","author":{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/contributor\/jack-dyson\/#Person","name":"Jack Dyson","url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/contributor\/jack-dyson\/","identifier":152,"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0d3b4b398e8aea3b7b406b7f646a735eb4ec2827c327fa6570e9ce500329a73a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0d3b4b398e8aea3b7b406b7f646a735eb4ec2827c327fa6570e9ce500329a73a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","height":96,"width":96}},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"The Future of Commerce","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/logo-foc-schema-app-1.png","url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/logo-foc-schema-app-1.png","width":172,"height":60}},"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/thumbnail-fa4f313d8aa9568af24903996eb4e220.jpeg","url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/thumbnail-fa4f313d8aa9568af24903996eb4e220.jpeg","height":375,"width":1220},"url":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2016\/06\/15\/microsoft-buys-linkedin\/","about":[{"@type":"Thing","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/marketing\/customer-engagement-marketing\/","name":"Customer Engagement","sameAs":["https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Customer_engagement","http:\/\/www.wikidata.org\/entity\/Q5196451"]},{"@type":"Thing","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/marketing\/","name":"Marketing","sameAs":["https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Marketing","http:\/\/www.wikidata.org\/entity\/Q39809"]},{"@type":"Thing","@id":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/marketing\/social-media\/","name":"Social Media","sameAs":["https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Social_media","http:\/\/www.wikidata.org\/entity\/Q202833"]}],"wordCount":801,"keywords":["CRM | Customer Relationship Management","Customer Engagement","Marketing","Social Media"],"articleBody":"We all watched from the sidelines this week as Microsoft made the biggest acquisition in its history, paying $26.2bn for LinkedIn. The question is: what sort of landscape will we be in when the world\u2019s largest business software company teams up with its most powerful professional networking and engagement brand?It\u2019s easy to see why this made the City prick up its ears:Partly because it could be the first spark in another tech M&A boom (Twitter shares certainly enjoyed a welcome fillip when the deal was announced, having been bouncing around near all-time lows)Also because both Microsoft and LinkedIn are nestled comfortably at the top of their respective trees.It promises to be a fascinating thing to watch.When is big too big?In my mind, there\u2019s something of the double-edged sword to this acquisition. Even if it was made at a premium, it\u2019s certainly a smart move on paper. For starters, there\u2019s a lot more to LinkedIn than a contact database.For some years now, the account and contact management aspect of CRM has looked gradually more irrelevant. Like a big old filing cabinet, the information CRM promises to gather is so often publicly available that it has rather outgrown its usefulness. But LinkedIn offers moreThe merger of Microsoft and LinkedIn \u2013 a marriage of professional solutions with enterprise software \u2013 could become a victim of its own size.For a lot of people, as well as being the go-to service for job searches and promotion among peers, LinkedIn is a terrifically useful engagement and social platform. Businesses can use it not only to gain insights into their market, but also to get feedback from customers. And now Microsoft, with its ubiquitous office suite and its comfortable monopoly of almost every email chain, owns it.The anatomy of what this creates is fascinating. Take what Microsoft\u2019s new virtual assistant Cortana can potentially track about you: how much you work, when you work, where you work, what you do in your spare time, what websites you visit, what you read, who you know, how often you talk to them, what games you play on Xbox (or, if you use Kinect to exercise, how that\u2019s going for you), what you watch, where you holiday, who you Skype, how good you are with money and so on.Now combine that richness of data with the sort of questions a potential employer might ask through LinkedIn \u2013 or indeed what a company might want to know about its current employees \u2013 and you get some pretty juicy insights. Whether the fact that this is even possible creeps you out a bit or is instead the most exciting advance in analytics and HR you\u2019ve heard of, is something you\u2019ll have to decide for yourself.To be honest, I\u2019m not sure how willing the Microsoft\u2019s technology support rivals will be to build a listening platform on something that\u2019s owned by a competitor. It\u2019s one thing being a consumer and sharing your data, but that changes once it\u2019s your own business information on the line. If only for due diligence, we have to consider all scenarios.To some commentators the LinkedIn brand, once a powerfully independent platform, now looks somewhat compromised. This is the other edge of the sword.Microsoft\u2019s agenda could end up driving both the platform and its narrative \u2013 what people see and don\u2019t see. In a world where Google has been accused of controlling what we see about both Hillary Clinton and Britain\u2019s ruling party, onlookers are quick to see what they expect rather than the less exciting truth \u2013 and it\u2019s hard to change their minds once they\u2019re fixed on a certain view.      How does employee experience impact business performance?                A positive employee experience helps drive the success of a company, from both a financial and social point of view.      Microsoft buys LinkedIn: Acquisition means big changes on the horizon – and don’t forget about the employeesWe all know the old saying \u201cwith great power comes great responsibility\u201d. If anything it is something of a clich\u00e9, but this is precisely because there is more than a kernel of truth in it. Microsoft will have to work hard in coming months to allay fears and stop people leaving LinkedIn for another independent service.Its history of acquisitions has not always been plain sailing. It\u2019s also worth remembering that there\u2019s something about the big kids muscling their way into the party \u2013 we\u2019ve seen with MySpace and FriendsReunited that it can be a bit of a buzzkill. Source: AlJazeera  The friction is REAL when it comes to the modern buyer’s journey.\u00a0Fortunately, there’s an omnichannel solution. Download the report NOW."},{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"2016","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2016\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"06","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2016\/\/06\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"15","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2016\/\/06\/\/15\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":4,"name":"Microsoft Buys LinkedIn: Looks good on paper, so why does it feel funny?","item":"https:\/\/www.the-future-of-commerce.com\/2016\/06\/15\/microsoft-buys-linkedin\/#breadcrumbitem"}]}]