Salesforce was a rival suitor for LinkedIn, says Benioff; sources say LinkedIn reached out to Microsoft
Microsoft agreed to buy networking website for $26.2 billion — Salesforce competes with Microsoft in corporate cloud software — Salesforce.com Inc. was a rival potential bidder …
Context & Ripple Effects
The LinkedIn sale was more contested than the $26.2B headline suggested. Benioff confirmed Salesforce was a rival bidder, and an SEC filing later showed interest from as many as five buyers including Google and Facebook — with sources saying LinkedIn itself reached out to Microsoft to discuss a sale. The two companies already knew each other well from the boardroom: a year earlier, Microsoft had offered $55B for Salesforce itself, but talks collapsed when Benioff held out for $70B (Microsoft's $55B offer for Salesforce).
First-order effects
- Salesforce loses its shot at owning the professional graph that feeds recruiting and sales-data products, while Microsoft folds LinkedIn under Jeff Weiner reporting to Satya Nadella.
Second-order effects
- Business Insider reported the losing bidder — likely Salesforce — actually offered more, around $200/share in cash and stock, meaning Microsoft's all-cash structure beat a higher price; with five suitors in play per the SEC filing, Google and Facebook were also priced out of the asset.
Third-order effects
- When cloud rivals like Microsoft and Salesforce compete for the same data assets rather than just customers, corporate networking platforms get consolidated into software suites — raising the odds regulators scrutinize how much professional-graph data concentrates inside one vendor.
The trend: Cloud-suite rivalry is spilling into M&A bidding wars, with all-cash certainty beating richer mixed offers for scarce data assets.