Salesforce CEO Told LinkedIn He Would Have Paid Much More Than Microsoft (recode.net)

Posted by msmash on Saturday July 23, 2016 @08:34AM from the aftermath dept.

Ina Fried, reporting for Recode: It was already known that LinkedIn chose a potentially lower all-cash acquisition offer from Microsoft rather than take on the uncertainties of a stock-and-cash deal from Salesforce. But now it has been revealed that Salesforce might have been willing to go "much higher" than Microsoft's $26.2 billion, or change other terms of its bid, had it been given the chance. In a filing with regulators on Friday, LinkedIn said a board committee met on July 7 to discuss an email from Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. "The email indicated that Party A would have bid much higher and made changes to the stock/cash components of its offers, but it was acting without communications from LinkedIn," LinkedIn said in the updated filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

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cycle of life by e**(i+pi)-1 · 2016-07-23 08:55 · Score: 4, Interesting

Cycle of life for social network companies: start-up builds up a large user base using free services, indicating a business model with optional services, selling out to a big fish, big fish digests it, squeezing out its gut. Big fish removes free services more and more, adding advertisement. User jumps to new free service. Alternatively: start-up becomes big fish and lives from eating other alive communities, remaining the big fish, as there are no alternatives.