LinkedIn Acquisition to Benefit Dynamics, Office 365

The acquisition of LinkedIn for US$26.2 billion in June 2016 will likely benefit Microsoft customers who use Dynamics CRM Online and Office 365-hosted services such as Delve Analytics. LinkedIn maintains profiles of working professionals and companies, and it makes the majority of its revenue from three components: services to recruiters, advertising on the LinkedIn site, and premium subscriptions. Whether the data LinkedIn collects about the relationships between professionals and companies will be useful to Microsoft’s enterprise customers will depend on how the companies integrate LinkedIn data with Microsoft products.

LinkedIn’s Data is the Prize

LinkedIn claims to connect more than 400 million professionals worldwide to collaborate and communicate and to help companies hire, market, and sell. The number of active users may be considerably smaller. LinkedIn’s data about the relationships between individuals and their skills, and individuals and their employers, are used by people who are changing careers, recruiters looking for talent for an organization, and sales personnel trying to identify the decision makers in an organization. The data are valuable to the extent that they are current, accurately reflect an individual’s information, and are searchable by people trying to find someone with a particular skill set or as a sales lead.