5 ms·

Skype, Nokia, Minecraft, LinkedIn. Also Yahoo, almost, at one point. Best of luck to Microsoft with its latest acquisition. It doesn't look that sensible thoug

by _yosefk 10y ago

Skype, Nokia, Minecraft, LinkedIn. Also Yahoo, almost, at one point. Best of luck to Microsoft with its latest acquisition. It doesn't look that sensible though.

verytrivial 10y ago
Does anyone have a reference to even some wild speculation as to what Microsoft gets out of for their own business? Or is this just somewhere to park some cash? I am honestly confused.
- wastedhours 10y ago
  More connections to enterprise, potential for some cloud HR play, a ready-established pseudo social network to compete with Facebook for Work (maybe as part of a Yammer, Office365, Skype for Business play), st-tonne of user data, SlideShare...
  - dforrestwilson 10y ago
    I'm still confused. If someone is shopping for a job on LinkedIn, do they want their employer to know that? Isn't there some risk of trust violation? Why would I want to take my online resume and hand it out around work? I just don't get the synergy plays here. They all feel like a very expensive moonshot.
    - wastedhours 10y ago
      I connect with colleagues, even my manager when I was at my previous job, even though I found my current role on there. But, think about it from the current plays - they have the work connections (organic "company graph"), the user's skills, your current job details (think about both of those as being an HR play), a learning platform (Lynda, but think of that as internal training/cloud qualifications), industry/enterprise trend information (can dive into the data of all of the roles and build products based on predicting market requirements). Slap on Pulse and SlideShare as publishing and an established (and probably growing) revenue hose from Recruiter and it makes some sense.
    - threeseed 10y ago
      If you are looking for a job you just send a private message to a bunch of recruiters or key decision makers e.g. managers. Your employer would never know. It's not a moonshot at all. LinkedIn is a pretty well understood business.
      - shostack 10y ago
        Unless said employer is LinkedIn (or now MS). I wonder what sort of information they'll be leveraging without telling their employees.
    - transpy 10y ago
      You turn off profile updates.
  - abpavel 10y ago
    I feel that over-focus on the interplay undermines core product. Power Point, RDP, Office. Outlook has significantly dropped in usability with introduction of 365. Overforced Win10 with Metro sandboxing undermines usability in many regards, dur to inability to link an action directly, but rather having to open a classic window. Microsoft forgets just how many their core products are used just because of RDP
    - wastedhours 10y ago
      But Office as a business unit is one of the cores, add in LinkedIn as another business unit - and they're building out the entire business systems ecosystem, end to end. Hiring (LinkedIn), HR (Office + LinkedIn), office productivity (Office), communications (Skype + Sharepoint, WP?), training (Lynda), infrastructure (Azure). Guessing next step will be another attempt at advertising/marketing platform. EDIT: forgot about Dynamics for that last one.
- vinnyp 10y ago
  This article explains it pretty well: http://www.zdnet.com/article/why-microsoft-just-bought-linkedin-its-all-about-the-data/ http://www.zdnet.com/article/why-microsoft-just-bought-linke...
elcapitan 10y ago
Is Microsoft becoming the official "bad bank" for tech investments?
- TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
  It's like Corel for B2B.
mwambua 10y ago
Skype is one of the more regrettable acquisitions. Linux support has been deplorable ever since.
- rbanffy 10y ago
  > Linux support has been deplorable ever since. That is probably a feature, not a bug ;-)
- pbhjpbhj 10y ago
  I've always assumed that was part of the embrace-extend-extinguish - "look at this shitty OS, Skype doesn't even work on there; you should use Win X".
  - 2bitencryption 10y ago
    Skype already works on OS X (ahem, macOS) and Windows, arguably the only two desktop operating systems with a significant amount of users. It still works on those two operating systems. So what are they extinguishing? And also what are they even embracing? They bought it outright. I don't think EEE, which hasn't really been a MS thing since the 90's, is even the proper term for this at all.
- icc97 10y ago
  At least it does work. Which of course Skype for Business completely doesn't, even in browsers (on Linux). Even then buying a Skype for Business account on Windows it's the most confusing mess as they assume that you're buying the full Office 365 suite and want to take over your email sending. Which contains this massive admin section that's basically empty and doesn't make much sense. So then you end up with some terrible user@blah.microsoftonline.com account which unless you pay for more than the basic package isn't an email address at all. So people still have to manually send you the link for any meeting that you are a part of. Then you have to do a real hunt to find the download for Skype for Business - cause they all assume you just bought the whole Office 365. I also can't connect to any Skype for Business account via Skype on Linux - just for messaging. That does work for some people for my Skype account on Windows to connect to Skype for Business but half the people don't get my contact requests or they are never shown online. Of course then there's Slack. Slack works everywhere. On top of that Slack (non-video) calls work almost everywhere except for the Firefox and Desktop apps on Linux.
arviewer 10y ago
I think this one makes sense though. I don't know if it's worth the money, but it complements their business approach.
longsangstan 10y ago
hows minecraft doing for microsoft?
- InclinedPlane 10y ago
  It's consistently the top selling game they have over there, it's continuing to print money at a constant rate (compared to most games which tend to make most of their money around releases).
- math0ne 10y ago
  Merchandising is huge, I imagine its doing very well in that regard.

by _yosefk 10y ago

Skype, Nokia, Minecraft, LinkedIn. Also Yahoo, almost, at one point. Best of luck to Microsoft with its latest acquisition. It doesn't look that sensible though.

verytrivial 10y ago

Does anyone have a reference to even some wild speculation as to what Microsoft gets out of for their own business? Or is this just somewhere to park some cash? I am honestly confused.

wastedhours 10y ago
More connections to enterprise, potential for some cloud HR play, a ready-established pseudo social network to compete with Facebook for Work (maybe as part of a Yammer, Office365, Skype for Business play), st-tonne of user data, SlideShare...
- dforrestwilson 10y ago
  I'm still confused. If someone is shopping for a job on LinkedIn, do they want their employer to know that? Isn't there some risk of trust violation? Why would I want to take my online resume and hand it out around work? I just don't get the synergy plays here. They all feel like a very expensive moonshot.
  - wastedhours 10y ago
    I connect with colleagues, even my manager when I was at my previous job, even though I found my current role on there. But, think about it from the current plays - they have the work connections (organic "company graph"), the user's skills, your current job details (think about both of those as being an HR play), a learning platform (Lynda, but think of that as internal training/cloud qualifications), industry/enterprise trend information (can dive into the data of all of the roles and build products based on predicting market requirements). Slap on Pulse and SlideShare as publishing and an established (and probably growing) revenue hose from Recruiter and it makes some sense.
  - threeseed 10y ago
    If you are looking for a job you just send a private message to a bunch of recruiters or key decision makers e.g. managers. Your employer would never know. It's not a moonshot at all. LinkedIn is a pretty well understood business.
    - shostack 10y ago
      Unless said employer is LinkedIn (or now MS). I wonder what sort of information they'll be leveraging without telling their employees.
  - transpy 10y ago
    You turn off profile updates.
- abpavel 10y ago
  I feel that over-focus on the interplay undermines core product. Power Point, RDP, Office. Outlook has significantly dropped in usability with introduction of 365. Overforced Win10 with Metro sandboxing undermines usability in many regards, dur to inability to link an action directly, but rather having to open a classic window. Microsoft forgets just how many their core products are used just because of RDP
  - wastedhours 10y ago
    But Office as a business unit is one of the cores, add in LinkedIn as another business unit - and they're building out the entire business systems ecosystem, end to end. Hiring (LinkedIn), HR (Office + LinkedIn), office productivity (Office), communications (Skype + Sharepoint, WP?), training (Lynda), infrastructure (Azure). Guessing next step will be another attempt at advertising/marketing platform. EDIT: forgot about Dynamics for that last one.
vinnyp 10y ago
This article explains it pretty well: http://www.zdnet.com/article/why-microsoft-just-bought-linkedin-its-all-about-the-data/ http://www.zdnet.com/article/why-microsoft-just-bought-linke...

elcapitan 10y ago

Is Microsoft becoming the official "bad bank" for tech investments?

TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
It's like Corel for B2B.

mwambua 10y ago

Skype is one of the more regrettable acquisitions. Linux support has been deplorable ever since.

rbanffy 10y ago
> Linux support has been deplorable ever since. That is probably a feature, not a bug ;-)
pbhjpbhj 10y ago
I've always assumed that was part of the embrace-extend-extinguish - "look at this shitty OS, Skype doesn't even work on there; you should use Win X".
- 2bitencryption 10y ago
  Skype already works on OS X (ahem, macOS) and Windows, arguably the only two desktop operating systems with a significant amount of users. It still works on those two operating systems. So what are they extinguishing? And also what are they even embracing? They bought it outright. I don't think EEE, which hasn't really been a MS thing since the 90's, is even the proper term for this at all.
icc97 10y ago
At least it does work. Which of course Skype for Business completely doesn't, even in browsers (on Linux). Even then buying a Skype for Business account on Windows it's the most confusing mess as they assume that you're buying the full Office 365 suite and want to take over your email sending. Which contains this massive admin section that's basically empty and doesn't make much sense. So then you end up with some terrible user@blah.microsoftonline.com account which unless you pay for more than the basic package isn't an email address at all. So people still have to manually send you the link for any meeting that you are a part of. Then you have to do a real hunt to find the download for Skype for Business - cause they all assume you just bought the whole Office 365. I also can't connect to any Skype for Business account via Skype on Linux - just for messaging. That does work for some people for my Skype account on Windows to connect to Skype for Business but half the people don't get my contact requests or they are never shown online. Of course then there's Slack. Slack works everywhere. On top of that Slack (non-video) calls work almost everywhere except for the Firefox and Desktop apps on Linux.

arviewer 10y ago

I think this one makes sense though. I don't know if it's worth the money, but it complements their business approach.

longsangstan 10y ago

hows minecraft doing for microsoft?

InclinedPlane 10y ago
It's consistently the top selling game they have over there, it's continuing to print money at a constant rate (compared to most games which tend to make most of their money around releases).
math0ne 10y ago
Merchandising is huge, I imagine its doing very well in that regard.