Why LinkedIn Will Make You Hate Microsoft Word

IF Microsoft has its way, the vast membership of LinkedIn, the business networking site with more than 433 million members, will be instantly available to you while you use Microsoft products like Outlook or Skype. How many of LinkedIn’s members do you want to consult while also using Excel or typing away in Word? Microsoft is betting it’s a lot; this is part of its rationale for its $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn, announced on Monday.

.. “This combination will make it possible for new experiences,” he wrote, such as “Office suggesting an expert to connect with via LinkedIn to help with a task you’re trying to complete.”

.. Did Mr. Nadella, who has been at Microsoft since 1992, learn nothing from the Clippy disaster?

.. “Most of the most innovative writing tools now on the market position themselves precisely as distraction-free platforms,

.. But I suspect that both Mr. Nadella and Mr. Weiner are afflicted with extremely bad cases of Facebookenvy. Every tech company, including Microsoft, contemplated buying, or actually tried to buy, Facebook in its early days, and all are haunted by the thought of the deal that got away.

.. Microsoft’s and LinkedIn’s “graphs” will be connected, Mr. Nadella said, and “that’s when the magic starts to happen in terms of how digital work gets completed.” What Mr. Nadella fails to see is how extending LinkedIn’s “social fabric” to Word will kill the magic, not speed it up.

Microsoft Buys LinkedIn for $26.2 Billion, Reasserting Its Muscle

It is also further evidence that Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s chief executive, sees the company’s future further and further removed from the PC software that once helped the company’s co-founder Bill Gates turn Microsoft into the world’s most valuable company.

Though they operate in different businesses, Microsoft and LinkedIn make most of their money by catering to professionals. Executives involved in the deal said that the common thread prompted the acquisition.

“This deal is all about bringing together the professional cloud and professional network,” Mr. Nadella said in a telephone interview.

.. And with more than $100 billion in cash and short-term investments as its disposal, Microsoft is an attractive suitor