Microsoft officially closes its acquisition of LinkedIn.

After getting its final European Commission approvals earlier this week, Microsoft and LinkedIn today announced that Microsoft’s $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn, the social networking site, has officially closed.

The news comes six months after news first broke of the deal.

In an internal memo, LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner went through the areas where the two companies would be working together, and how they will in other ways remain independent. That memo is copied below.

LinkedIn today has over 400 million registered users, making it the largest social networking site focused on the working world. People use the service both to make work connections with other people in their fields, but also to look for jobs and hire people. 

As we reported earlier this week, the fact that LinkedIn essentially has a dominant position in this area meant that Microsoft had to make concessions to the EC about how it would work to allow other social networking sites to integrate on its platforms.

The fact that these concessions had to be made speaks a little to what Microsoft’s intentions might be with LinkedIn. It seems like one key area for Microsoft will be to upsell those using LinkedIn to recruit, to then buy into Microsoft’s software in areas like HR and sales to extend that functionality.

Microsoft has up to now not really been a significant player in open-ended social networking, although with products like Yammer and Skype it’s clearly put a lot of investment into the kinds of collaboration products that are in demand from enterprises and business users today. It will be interesting to see how and if it tries to marry these two sides of enterprise-focused social networking down the line.

Team, 

Six months ago, we announced our intention to be acquired by Microsoft. At the time, Satya and I shared the background of the deal and our joint vision for changing the way the world works. Today I’m pleased to announce that we’ve just officially closed the acquisition. I’m more confident than ever that our move to join forces with Microsoft will accelerate our mission to connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful, and ultimately help create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce.
Over the past few months, the LinkedIn and Microsoft leadership teams have been meeting to understand and prioritize the opportunities ahead. We’ve been able to see first-hand the level of innovation being driven at scale — in artificial intelligence, machine learning, the cloud, devices, and more. We’ve also had the chance to build a deeper relationship with Satya and the Microsoft leadership team, and to witness the strategic and cultural shifts they are driving, and the impressive traction they are seeing as a result.
As we move forward, our day-to-day operations will essentially remain unchanged: We’ll continue to have the same mission and vision, the same culture and values, the same brand, and the same leadership team.
Our members still come first. Our commitment to privacy and security will not change. And our partners are still core to our business. We’ll continue to remain focused on growing LinkedIn and creating value for our members and customers. Over the coming months we’ll start sharing more about how we’re integrating products, especially in areas where we can leverage Microsoft’s scale, e.g.,

• LinkedIn identity and network in Microsoft Outlook and the Office suite

• LinkedIn notifications within the Windows action center

• Enabling members drafting résumés in Word to update their profiles, and discover and apply to jobs on LinkedIn

• Extending the reach of Sponsored Content across Microsoft properties

• Enterprise LinkedIn Lookup powered by Active Directory and Office 365

• LinkedIn Learning available across the Office 365 and Windows ecosystem

• Developing a business news desk across our content ecosystem and MSN.com

• Redefining social selling through the combination of Sales Navigator and Dynamics 365

Getting to this point wouldn’t have been possible without the teams who have been working tirelessly on the close since we announced the deal in June. I’d like to thank them for all they’ve done to set us up for success as we begin our next chapter.
In so many ways we’re just getting started, and I couldn’t be more excited about the future.
Next play. 

Jeff

Source: TechCrunch