By Tammy Sachs, CEO

Microsoft owns productivity tools – at least for us Windows users.  Want to write a document? Use Word. Creating a presentation? PowerPoint. Making a spreadsheet? Excel.

Is this a monopoly? Yes. This is good for consistency, though not so much as an incentive for Microsoft to innovate or optimize.  What’s the incentive?  Well, brand love. Acquiring LinkedIn is a good move in that direction.

What more organic a “social” purchase for Microsoft than the ultimate and only knowledge worker network.  LinkedIn has done such a brilliant job not only as a platform for connecting people professionally (and socially), it is an amazing publishing outlet.  I love reading and writing Pulses. The content gets better and better.  LinkedIn has also become our “go-to” recruiting tool as well as a great way to research and find resources and clients.  Who would have thought five years ago that doctors, academics, students and those in the social sector (aka not for profit) would have joined LinkedIn?  This diversity adds all the more value as our business ecosystem thrives on thought leaders and social advocates.

Microsoft to buy LinkedIn for $26.2B in cash, makes big move into enterprise social media.

This acquisition is a very exciting and organic one – not to mention, profitable.  What other “couple” can create a union where it results in a $26 billion cash deal and the full endorsement of both boards?  Jeff Weiner is a brilliant innovator in how he and his team have grown the feature set of LinkedIn.  Unlike other ‘social’ networks, LinkedIn, on the whole, adds value with most of its additional features.

That said, as a passionate advocate for customer experience, I hope both companies take a look at some of the basic stuff we customers (especially enterprise customers who pay a premium) do every day.  Call it workflow, basic tasks, etc., Microsoft Office and LinkedIn could use a little love in the customer experience department.

All in all, great news for two companies that own very large areas of productivity!  What are your thoughts on this deal and how the whole could be better than the sum of its parts?