With Microsoft Corp’s $26.2 billion pending acquisition of LinkedIn, the former intends to connect users of Microsoft Word and PowerPoint with LinkedIn’s network of 467 million professionals. And as all await to see how Microsoft will utilize LinkedIn within the competitive marketplace, they also wonder what impact will it have on customers and partners. Microsoft partners are as well speculating how this will influence their business.
Microsoft with LinkedIn’s platform would add to a suite of sales, marketing and recruiting services to its core business products. But some Microsoft partners’ concern is that the company many diminish its own offerings.
With this move, Microsoft looks at enhancing Office 365 productivity platform and Dynamics ERP/CRM software and new ways to use Big Data. Given this scenario, some partners seem to praise the deal, others had no expectations and a few see it as a risk. At present, Microsoft and LinkedIn are in a quiet period and are not disclosing specific plans.
Microsoft anticipates the deal to get through next month. Presuming this, the question is, to what level the company will integrate LinkedIn with Office 365 and how it will integrate with new Dynamic 365 business suite, particularly its CRM components.
Though there are speculations and fear among the partners, the Microsoft community has an advantage because there is a platform to work with that is this complex data store that LinkedIn offers. This is a substantial base of people who have being this platform for a long time. Getting that data in isgoing to be a huge advantage to Microsoft.