(I'm sure someone at MS has an answer to this, it's just that they haven't been tremendously successful in the past with their big acquisitions; I don't think Skype or Nokia paid off. And in general tech companies often buy other companies without much apparent success. Why is it so crazy to doubt their wisdom in any particular instance?)
That's the best remark in the whole thread. Employee poking at competitors. Sales teams looking up the right people to connect with. Thanks to the LinkedIn share button, like Facebook, they can have parts of your browsing history. I don't even know whether the purchase should be allowed.
In terms of data mining this is still a huge price-point, but obviously some team at MS projected the benefits vs expense.
This also gives MS some great data to possibly feed into the team that manages their investment portfolio. How valuable would it be to have a (admittedly not perfect) feed of employee growth/deflation for various companies? That would also provide a ton of leverage for future acquisitions, etc.
There's a LOT you can learn from LinkedIn data if you have access to the unfiltered data.
1. Integrate Skype into LinkedIn 2. Add a shared chat screen (video group chat)
This will allow many Human Resources to perform interviews more efficiently (in return to subscription). I can imagine many other new attractive features MS could easily add (e.g. syntax highlighting in group chat).
Works in browser, no account, encrypted by default.
Beyond the expansion in potential revenue models, it's rational for Microsoft to spend their cash on things that cement their dominance in the workplace, particularly as Apple and Google could always choose to make a hard push into that space. Assuming LinkedIn continues to dominate as a professional network, Windows 15 Powered By LinkedIn is a hell of a moat to cross.