Five reasons why Microsoft should not have acquired LinkedIn

How can Microsoft justify the hefty $26.2bn price tag?

Acquiring LinkedIn could be a huge risk for Microsoft. Just imagine the next time you log-in to LinkedIn being asked to upgrade to Windows 10 first, or to see your whole LinkedIn feed disappear, only to realise it's been dumped into the new LinkedIn Clutter folder?

Enough of the dreaming, here's our top five reasons why Microsoft should not have acquired LinkedIn.

5. Burning a hole in your pocket much?

The first reaction most people will have when they hear the news is 'Wow', as if to say 'What a great deal'. But this is quickly followed by a gasp and an 'Are you crazy?' because of the astonishing sum Microsoft is paying for LinkedIn.

Eight years ago LinkedIn was worth just over $1bn (£508m), according to the company's then chief executive Dan Nye, and Microsoft was supposedly sniffing around the social media network even then.

Several rumours continued to circle about companies buying LinkedIn, including News Corp, but none suggested that any company would be daft enough to pay $26bn for the ‘professional' social network.

Five reasons why Microsoft should not have acquired LinkedIn

How can Microsoft justify the hefty $26.2bn price tag?

4. Forget relationships - profit matters

To make matters worse, Microsoft is spending $26bn (£18bn) on a company that reported an annual loss of $8m. LinkedIn's stock plunged 43 per cent when the company announced that loss, sinking to a three-year low of $110 in early trading and wiping $11bn off the firm's value.

Despite a growing user base and an increase in revenues, the company hasn't quite worked out how to make a profit, which begs the question: how does Microsoft see LinkedIn growing its own revenues? And will it see a return on investment on the $26bn it will pay?

Five reasons why Microsoft should not have acquired LinkedIn

How can Microsoft justify the hefty $26.2bn price tag?

3. Making a hash of acquisitions

Nokia. Enough said.

Five reasons why Microsoft should not have acquired LinkedIn

How can Microsoft justify the hefty $26.2bn price tag?

2. Insecurity

LinkedIn was hacked in 2012, but what is surprising is that the incident is still causing trouble. A hacker allegedly found an extra 167 million user account details and flogged them online just a month ago.

Microsoft already has to patch its own products in a bid to stop cyber criminals getting into systems and extracting sensitive information, so it won't be a surprise if one of its first acts is to have a look at how security is handled at LinkedIn (be worried, security folks at LinkedIn).

Microsoft will want to ensure that LinkedIn, despite remaining independent of the software firm, will never ever suffer another data breach like this one.

Five reasons why Microsoft should not have acquired LinkedIn

How can Microsoft justify the hefty $26.2bn price tag?

1. No one uses LinkedIn as a professional network anyway

Around 430 million people are signed up to LinkedIn, and Microsoft will be able to access probably the largest global database of professionals. But only a quarter of subscribers use it on a monthly basis, and a huge swathe of them don't even update their details when they switch jobs.

People who do use it regularly usually spam the feed with Facebook-like posts or marketing spiel, add everyone from their Outlook account and essentially annoy the hell out of everyone else. Sometimes it's not just about the vast amount of data you get, but the quality of the data.

LinkedIn's slogan is ‘relationships matter', but the truth is that many people don't care about how they interact with the social media network, or its users.