LinkedIn shareholders should be on cloud nine right now!
QuoteNEW YORK — Microsoft says it is buying professional networking service site LinkedIn for about $26.2 billion.
LinkedIn, based in Mountain View, California, has more than 430 million members. Users can network with professionals, upload their resumes and search for jobs on the site.
Microsoft Corp. says it is paying $196 for each share of LinkedIn Corp., a 50 percent premium of the stock's closing price of $131.08 on Friday.
LinkedIn shares soared 49 percent before the stock market opened Monday.
full article: http://jacksonville.com/breaking-news/2016-06-13/story/microsoft-buy-networking-site-linkedin-262-billion
I use it still for networking, however, the user experience (especially mobile) is awful IMO. It needs a lot of work.
After deleting my FB account earlier this year, it's the only social media page I have left. I prefer not being easily accessible....to many cray crays out there and I don't have much time for nonsense these days. I don't really use it but it's a way for me to be contacted professionally and I do know people who use it to find perspective employees.
Quote from: Murder_me_Rachel on June 13, 2016, 10:06:21 AM
I, and almost everyone I know, has a LinkedIN page, but it largely seems pretty worthless. Not sure how anyone would come up with a valuation of $1billion, let alone $26 freaking billion.
Maybe it's that very fact - the fact that
everyone seems to have a profile? I don't know.
Pundits speculate that this is MSFT's first shot at Salesforce.
I am not very impressed with the people running Microsoft, and while I dont like Bill Gates either, I at least respected what his team produced.
Today it has become a wealthy set of wannabes.
They cant create cache, so they try to buy it.
Just think of the billions of dollars and peoples careers they put into the toilet with Nokia.
Quote from: spuwho on June 14, 2016, 08:32:40 AM
Just think of the billions of dollars and peoples careers they put into the toilet with Nokia.
Wasn't Nokia on life support prior to being acquired by Microsoft?
I am not too familiar with the ins and outs of that deal - but I seem to recall Nokia was struggling. Which seemed weird at the time, because they used to be so dominant.
Quote from: Murder_me_Rachel on June 13, 2016, 10:06:21 AM
I, and almost everyone I know, has a LinkedIN page, but it largely seems pretty worthless. Not sure how anyone would come up with a valuation of $1billion, let alone $26 freaking billion.
Depends on your industry. If you work in Tech, it's very difficult to network for a job without it. The two best job leads I've ever received were from LinkedIn.
I work in the advertising and marketing field and it's very useful for me.
Quote from: Adam White on June 14, 2016, 08:42:41 AM
Quote from: spuwho on June 14, 2016, 08:32:40 AM
Just think of the billions of dollars and peoples careers they put into the toilet with Nokia.
Wasn't Nokia on life support prior to being acquired by Microsoft?
I am not too familiar with the ins and outs of that deal - but I seem to recall Nokia was struggling. Which seemed weird at the time, because they used to be so dominant.
Nokia was dominant. They attempted to bring to market a competitor to Android called "Meego" based on GNU/Linux. Meego was really a response to Microsoft not wanting to support Intel Atom in Netbooks, so Intel merged their OS with Nokia's. Intel was trying to get Atom into handsets and thought it was their chance.
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/30/Meego-handset-launcher.png/120px-Meego-handset-launcher.png)
But it failed to take hold. Intel, Samsung and others began to move from Meego to do research based on Tizen. Microsoft took advantage of Nokia's misdirection and pushed money at them (through division head Stephen Elop) to use Windows Phone more prominently. The Nokia tablets and N900 phone based on Meego was probably the peak of that ecosystem in its lifetime. The Lumia was the peak of the Nokia/Windows Phone combo.
Nokia, losing money on phones and seeing that the Chinese (Huawei, Xiaomi, ZTE, Lenovo) were just around the corner with inexpensive handsets using Android decided to divest the entire portfolio to Microsoft including the patents Nokia held. Let's just say MSFT way overpaid, but did get ahold of all of those Nokia wireless patents and as of today collect royalties off Google for those patents.
Nokia meanwhile made out like bandits. They turned around and consolidated their share in the premises equipment business and bought out Alcatel-Lucent. Now they own a large market share of the supporting cell tower radio equipment and other telecom gear.
In an odd twist, the non-compete clause recently expired with Microsoft and Nokia is currently pairing up with a Chinese supplier to sell you guessed it, a Nokia branded phone. Unfortunately, all of the Nokia Wireless employees and factories that moved over to Microsoft have all closed and employees laid off.
In another odd twist, Xiaomi just cross licensed Microsofts wireless patents, of which many are made up of Nokia's.
While Nokia looked like a fallen flag in wireless, they actually made out through Microsoft's utter stupidity and thw multi-billion write down MSFT took led to Steve Ballmer retiring and leaving to run the LA Clippers.