European Union clears $26 bn LinkedIn acquisition by Microsoft

The European Commission has cleared the $26 billion LinkedIn acquisition by Microsoft and the deal will close in coming days, Microsoft said on Wednesday.

The tech giant has now obtained all of the regulatory approvals needed to complete the acquisition.

"As part of our discussions with the European Commission, we formalised several commitments regarding Microsoft's support for third-party professional social networking services," said Brad Smith, President and Chief Legal Officer, Microsoft, in a blog post.

The approval in Brussels follows similar reviews and clearances in the United States, Canada, Brazil and South Africa.

"We'll continue to make our Office Add-in programme available to third-party professional social networking services. The Office Add-in program enables developers to integrate their services into Microsoft Outlook, Word, PowerPoint and Excel, providing users an enhanced experience using Office," Smith wrote.

"We'll continue to make promotional opportunities in the Office Store available to third-party professional social networking services," he added.

In June this year, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner announced their shared vision for bringing together the world's leading professional cloud with the world's leading professional network.

"We'll ensure that IT administrators and users can customize their Office experience by choosing whether to display in the user interface the LinkedIn profile and activity information that may be integrated in the future," Smith continued.

Microsoft and LinkedIn together have a bigger opportunity to help people online to develop and earn credentials for new skills, identify and pursue new jobs, and become more creative and productive as they work with their colleagues.

"If we develop a LinkedIn application or a tile for Windows PCs and include it in Windows, we'll allow PC manufacturers to choose not to install them on their Windows PCs in the European Economic Area or EEA," Smith noted.

"Similarly, we'll ensure that users can uninstall the application and tile if they wish. We also won't use Windows itself to prompt users to install a LinkedIn application, although it can remain available in the Windows Store and be promoted in other ways," he posted.

LinkedIn has 433 million members and two million of them are paid subscribers.

Microsoft India (R&D) Pvt. Ltd.