Microsoft acquires Linkedin for $26.2billion in Cash

CEO Satya Nadella says the acquisition will be "key to our bold ambition to reinvent productivity and busiess processes."
Microsoft missed the mobile wave. Now Satya Nadella says he's going to spend a ton of money to help keep up in the services business.
The microsoft CEO is buying Linkedin, the professional social network for $26.2billion, or $196 a share, in an all cash deal.
The acquisition, the largest in Nadella's tenure will be "key to our bold ambition to reinvent productivity and busiess processes" he wrote in a letter to Microsoft employees.
It is also an admission by Linkedin's management that the company wasn't going to be able to convince Wall Street of its value. In 2015, Linkedin shares had climbed as high as $269, but since then they have tumbled as investors have become more skeptical about most cloud-based businesses. Linkedin was trading at $131 prior to this morning's announcement.
For Microsoft, a big part of the deal is about being at the center of the business worker, while it has ceded the personal social graph to Facebook and others, it sees being at the center of the worker's world as too important to miss. That know-how is also important is Cortana and its border artificial intelligence aspirations.

The deal should close this year the companies said, with Linkedin CEO Jeff Weiner remaining head of that unit and joining Microsoft's senior leadership team.