Here's Microsoft CEO's letter to employees about the $26 billion LinkedIn acquisition
For Microsoft, buying LinkedIn is all about combining social connections (LinkedIn) with a productivity-focused cloud (Office 365 and Dynamics CRM). Or, as Microsoft said in its graphic announcing the acquisition, “creating more connected, intelligent and productive experiences.”
That may sound like a jumble of buzzwords, but Nadella's letter to Microsoft employees supplies an example of what he envisions. Imagine “a LinkedIn newsfeed that serves up articles based on the project you are working on,” Nadella said. “And Office suggesting an expert to connect with via LinkedIn to help with a task you’re trying to complete.”
The key thrust appears to be to integrate LinkedIn connections with your direct productivity tasks as helpfully as possible, using intelligent computing.
Nadella also sees the LinkedIn acquisition as a way to reinvent “selling, marketing and talent management business processes.” Maybe the acquisition does have something to do with spam after all.
Here’s Nadella’s full remarks to employees, as published on Microsoft’s News site.
LinkedIn has also posted remarks from its CEO Jeff Weiner.