It was long overdue and now its finally done — as Microsoft becomes the official owner LinkedIn. Both companies confirmed the news on Thursday that the deal is finally complete. The news comes six months after reports started emerging of a possible LinkedIn acquisition by Microsoft for a whopping $26.2 billion.
“Today is an exciting day, one I’ve been looking forward to since June. It marks the close of the agreement for Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn and the beginning of our journey to bring together the world’s leading professional cloud and the world’s leading professional network”, said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, in a blog post.
The deal is apparently one of the biggest acquisitions in the history of tech companies. The Redmond giant plans to become one of the top providers of cloud- based services, and is said to integrate its suite of cloud-based services with LinkedIn which include Office 365, Microsoft Dynamics, along with customer relationship management (CRM).
Moreover, the Redmond giant plans to work on Artificial Intelligence, cloud-based devices, along with machine learning to further improve the way LinkedIn works.
For users, LinkedIn will stay largely similar to what it is now. However, in the near future LinkedIn users may see the professional network informing them about how they can use products such as Office 365 and other cloud-based services with the professional networking site.
“The LinkedIn that you use to advance your career, find jobs, build your network and stay informed is only going to get better. We’re going to focus on how we leverage Microsoft’s impressive scale and innovation to create more value for all of you”, said LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner.
The deal was made possible by the European Commission, who signaled a green flag on a condition that the Redmond-based tech company lets other professional networking sites use its Office suite of apps and cloud-based services for the next five years.
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