Salesforce Pushes Regulators to Block Microsoft’s LinkedIn Deal
Salesforce once enjoyed a cozy relationship with Microsoft, now it’s urging regulators to kill Microsoft’s deal to buy LinkedIn as “anticompetitive,” according to the company’s chief legal officer.
CNN Money is reporting that Salesforce also bid for LinkedIn, but lost out to Microsoft’s $26.2 billion bid for the professional social network.
“Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of LinkedIn threatens the future of innovation and competition,” Burke Norton, chief legal officer at Salesforce, said in a statement. “By gaining ownership of LinkedIn’s unique dataset of over 450 million professionals in more than 200 countries, Microsoft will be able to deny competitors access to that data, and in doing so obtain an unfair competitive advantage.”
“The combative remarks hint at a renewed chill in the relationship between Salesforce and Microsoft,” writes CNN’s Seth Fiegerman. “The two companies entered into a global strategic partnership in 2014, heaping praise on one another after years of fierce competition. It was unclear how Salesforce’s comments would impact the partnership.”
