After a few days we reflected on the reasons for the purchase of Linkedin by Microsoft

$26.2 billion. The news jumped to the media a few days ago and it is that we found out about the bomb in the markets when Microsoft surprise purchase of a social network such as Linkedin It was the largest operation in the world of social networks after the purchase of WhatsApp by Facebook.

And after the purchase, the question was obvious: What is Microsoft's motivation to get hold of a social network that otherwise would not It stands out precisely for being in the word of mouth of users? It is a social network focused on professional and business use and the unknowns before the purchase were numerous.

A few days have passed and it is time to reflect on this purchase and the first thing to look at are the figures, leaving one side the acquisition price. Although it is not as well known as other networks, Linkedin has 433 million professional profiles to its credit, 105 million of them on mobile (with users on both iOS and Android), two million paid subscribers and nine million pages. of companies with their employees and job offers.

A social network that, faced with the collapse of others in low hours such as Twitter, increased its turnover by 35% in 2015with respect to the previous year, reaching 2,991 million dollars. In this way, it reached 780 million profits and for this 2016 it expects to grow 15% more.

The first unknowns after the purchase referred to the charges on Linkedin, something that Redmond immediately clarified through an official note: LinkedIn it will retain “its brand, culture and independence” and a position of independence, and Jeff Weiner, its CEO, will remain in his position.

What reasons would Microsoft have to buy a service like LinkedIn?

The key for this purchase can have a name: Microsoft applications, especially Office 365 At least that's what we can think of if we We stick to Jeff Weiner's statements that show that the objective is none other than to integrate the social network of contacts into many of Microsoft's applications and solutions.

It is about integrating the social use of professionals with their work tools so that if, for example, we use Office, Skype or Cortana, LinkedIn will be present as an integrated complement, so that we can interact directly with other user profiles either to seek help or to share our achievements and developments in the professional field.

An agreement that even the CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella, communicated via internal email to all his employees, aware of the importance of the same despite the ignorance on the part of the generality of the population:

Stay important in the business market

Google and Apple are increasingly present in the professional and educational market, traditionally a stronghold of Microsoft. The Redmond company does not want to lose the battle for said market to these two giants and the growing threat of Facebook, which dominates social networks with an iron hand.

In addition, Microsoft also intends to integrate Linkedin with Lynda.com, the teaching platform, so that everything is one and we have access to these two tools from the application that we are using, be it Office 360, Skype, Cortana... It is about building a unique professional profile of each user in all its corporate applications and platforms.

This symbiosis is a more than interesting business, since it represents potential figures of 315,000 million dollars of which 200.000 belong to Microsoft services and 115,000 to LinkedIn. Basically the question is rooting in the company, because given the huge database of the professional social network par excellence, Microsoft could directly receive information from businessmen of the database of this network and be able to offer their products in a personalized way.

The professional and the company in the spotlight

Microsoft has its sights set on professional services, something that was already intuited when it was rumored about the purchase by the American company of Slack, the instant messaging platform in fashion in companies and which is now confirmed with the acquisition of LinkedIn.

The ultimate goal therefore seems to be the creation of a cloud-centric professional network and in which every LinkedIn user can access the network from each of the Microsoft's own applicationsIt is not a purchase to be seen only about money, profits, growth or potential, but rather we are talking about productivity, marketing, sales and professional development, factors that are all increasingly important and that Redmond seems to have seen before anyone else.