Today you will see endless speculation as to why Microsoft is acquiring business (social) network LinkedIn. What seems like an unlikely pair has stunned the tech and social media world this morning as they announced a ~26.2 Billion dollar a cash deal to make LinkedIn Part of the Microsoft family.
The Big question on many peoples mind is why?
Allow me to take a stab at it. With Microsoft’s big play in the cloud, especially in the collaboration space. They now have Office 365, One Drive and Skype for Business (Formerly Lync). What if collaboration could be boundless and borderless by introducing an open connection platform like LinkedIn and then layering in collaboration services to allow users to go beyond posting and sharing but to messaging, speaking and video in a seamless environment?
We all know that the world is going social as technology and people come together to transform business. However, one of the limitations to most technology and collaboration suites is that you have to be inside the walls of the tool to use it effectively. With the LinkedIn database of users serving at the top of the funnel, people will be instantly more able to connect; Fitting in a time where our attention is so fractured that picking the right channel and the right message are critical to business survival.
Beyond collaboration, LinkedIn has a tremendous subscription volume and while most of their 433 Million members are not paid subscribers, they have a strong recurring revenue model which also fits well into Microsofts Cloud play.
Hear from the Microsoft and LinkedIn CEOs on the move…
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This post was first published on Facebook.
Daniel Newman is the Principal Analyst of Futurum Research and the CEO of Broadsuite Media Group. Living his life at the intersection of people and technology, Daniel works with the world’s largest technology brands exploring Digital Transformation and how it is influencing the enterprise. From Big Data to IoT to Cloud Computing, Newman makes the connections between business, people and tech that are required for companies to benefit most from their technology projects, which leads to his ideas regularly being cited in CIO.Com, CIO Review and hundreds of other sites across the world. A 5x Best Selling Author including his most recent “Building Dragons: Digital Transformation in the Experience Economy,” Daniel is also a Forbes, Entrepreneur and Huffington Post Contributor. MBA and Graduate Adjunct Professor, Daniel Newman is a Chicago Native and his speaking takes him around the world each year as he shares his vision of the role technology will play in our future.