Breakingviews - LinkedIn ages like fine wine in Microsoft's cellar

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You Might Like � � � You Might Like � � � � � � � � � Don't like ads? Go ad-free with TradeBriefs Premium Breakingviews - LinkedIn ages like fine wine in Microsoft's cellar    NEW YORK, June 28 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Most corporate acquisitions deteriorate over time, but Microsoft's (MSFT.O) $26 billion deal for LinkedIn keeps getting better. Although the original vision of a universal and complete professional profile has yet to be realized, connecting business networking with Outlook and other workplace software is proving to be fruitful nevertheless. And in the emerging age of generative artificial intelligence, the verifiable identities of adult users, and their musings, will only amplify the value. There were good reasons to be skeptical about the transaction at the time. Buying LinkedIn was a bold step for Satya Nadella, who became the software goliath's third chief executive in early 2014. Under his predecessor, Steve Ballmer, the company's track record in M&A was terrible, including value-destructive acquisitions of Finnish cellphone maker Nokia and advertising agency aQuantive. Paying a 50% premium for LinkedIn and its 430 million users made it one of the technology industry's largest deals ever and by far Microsoft's biggest. The record will stand unless regulators reverse their opposition to last year's $69 billion agreed takeover of video-game developer Activision Blizzard (ATVI.O) or courts back it. The war over the "Call of Duty" maker is just one of many things happening at Microsoft that's overshadowing LinkedIn. There's also the fast growth in the Azure and other cloud services divisions and sustained revenue increases in the Office 365 and Windows commercial segments as well as in servers. ChatGPT, the company's AI initiative, is also creating outsized buzz. Continued here

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