As Microsoft has made it official to absorb LinkedIn, it is expected to have one goal: Make this acquisition unique. The company has a track record of giant buys gone south and write-downs have capped $13 billion since 2012. The buying of Nokia's handset unit appears to have doomed from the beginning, while buying aQuantive, which made software for selling display ads on the web, suggests like a good idea - yet it winded up being a pricey mistake.
Here's what Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella must do to keep the newly-completed LinkedIn deal from joining the ash-heap of M&A history.
Retain LinkedIn Chief Executive Officer Jeff Weiner - and for more than the two to three years that secured executives generally stay around. Weiner is fiercely known among the staff talking a lot about "managing compassionately".
When LinkedIn stock declined last February after inadequate earnings, Weiner held a company meeting to calm the fears of everyone. Then Jeff gave up own $14 million stock award, distributing it instead to employees. Jeff is also one of the few Silicon Valley executives who can speak about corporate goals - assisting people to find better jobs - with sufficient sincerity for listeners to buy it.
Microsoft has taken over companies with well-respected leaders in the past, and among these also included David Sacks's Yammer and Mike McCue's Tellme Networks. Both the founders resided at Microsoft for about two years before farewell.
The New York times reported that Mr. Satya Nadella is taking Microsoft from its roots in software for personal computers and computer servers in the new age of cloud computing mobile devices when artificial intelligence (A.I) is rapidly playing the role as an intermediary.
LinkedIn matters to Microsoft for both the A.I talent it has on staff and the vast amount of data it holds on its users. A.I. works very well when it has a huge variety of data sets from which information is drawn.
LinkedIn's vast collection of data is in fact why Salesforce which was once agreeing with Microsoft over its own possible acquisition, now objects to the buying of LinkedIn.