Microsoft Buys LinkedIn for 26 Billion

[Fuzz]

Ah yes, $26 billion / 433 million users =$60. Not sure where the $1000 came from. Active users are only about 100 million, so $260 per active user.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by Azure

Makes sense. With everything moving to the cloud Microsoft is highly competitive with Google to get businesses signed up to Office 365. There are around 1.2 billion office users, but only 80 million actual Office 365 subscribers, so Microsoft has huge potential to increase their subscriber base.

Even if they just get half of those people onto Office 365 paying $20/month for basic Office and email, that is HUGE potential cash cow. Well worth the $26 billion that it cost to buy Linkedin. They could make that back in 2 months.

You say converting half like you are being realistic. Converting 3-4% of users from a free service to an unrelated $20/month (Does it really cost that much) service would probably be a pretty lofty goal.

Our organization forbids us from putting anything that identifies who we work for and what we do on Linked In. I would guess we aren't alone in that regard, so I'm not sure how much valuable data there is for potential sales targets anyway.

This seems like a crazy buy from a company with too much cash, not unlike Apple's Beats acquisition.

[Rathji]

I can see them integrating LinkedIn with Office 365 as a supplement to Yammer for business side of social media.

If you think about $260 per business user, that isn't that much. They gave everyone a free $100 OS in Windows 10 to get their personal info.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by nfotiu

You say converting half like you are being realistic. Converting 3-4% of users from a free service to an unrelated $20/month (Does it really cost that much) service would probably be a pretty lofty goal.

Our organization forbids us from putting anything that identifies who we work for and what we do on Linked In. I would guess we aren't alone in that regard, so I'm not sure how much valuable data there is for potential sales targets anyway.

This seems like a crazy buy from a company with too much cash, not unlike Apple's Beats acquisition.

ARPU for Office 365 is around $50. I went with a little under half.

We pay $6/user for Exchange. Upgrading to a full office suite would bring us to $20.

As time goes on more and more users will start subscribing to some kind of office suite. Microsoft is trying to make sure that more people go with Office 365 than with Google Apps or similar service.

Still, gonna take a while to recoup the $26 billion.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by Azure

Makes sense. With everything moving to the cloud Microsoft is highly competitive with Google to get businesses signed up to Office 365. There are around 1.2 billion office users, but only 80 million actual Office 365 subscribers, so Microsoft has huge potential to increase their subscriber base.

Even if they just get half of those people onto Office 365 paying $20/month for basic Office and email, that is HUGE potential cash cow. Well worth the $26 billion that it cost to buy Linkedin. They could make that back in 2 months.

Christ we won't pay a few cents for a movie or a song, I can't see anyone paying twenty bucks a month to borrow a typewriter.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

Christ we won't pay a few cents for a movie or a song, I can't see anyone paying twenty bucks a month to borrow a typewriter.

Corporate types will pay that though. Now Microsoft knows who's got the money and influencing power to purchase software.

[Azure]

Like I said, a billion people use Office already. Microsoft will slowly want to move people to a subscription based package. They are counting on Linkedin to help them do that.