European Commission green lights Microsoft-LinkedIn deal to a close

Microsoft’s $26.2 billion LinkedIn acquisition has almost come to a close as the last regulator, European Commission, has signed it off. The deal was announced by Microsoft in June earlier this year and stated that pending regulatory approvals, it would close the deal by the end of 2016. With European Commission on-board, being the last regulator to give clearance to the deal, Microsoft now claims to have acceded all the approvals needed for completing the acquisition from Brussels, US, Canada, Brazil and South Africa. Brad Smith, President and Chief Legal Officer, Microsoft, in an official statement said, “In each country and in a number of others, we’ve had the opportunity to review our combination with government officials and regulators in considerable detail.”

“As part of our discussions with the European Commission, we formalized several commitments regarding Microsoft’s support for third-party professional social networking services for the next five years.”

Commitments

According to the commitment, Microsoft will continue to make Office Add-in program available to third-party professional social networking services. It will make promotional opportunities in the Office Store available to third-party professional social networking services. Microsoft claims to 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.

European angle

Microsoft also said that if it develops a LinkedIn application or a tile for Windows PCs and includes it in Windows, PC manufacturers and users will be allowed to choose whether to install or uninstall it on Windows PCs in the European Economic Area (EEA). The company claims that it will not prompt users to install a LinkedIn application, although it will remain available in the Windows Store and be promoted in other ways.

“In the EEA we won’t enter into agreements with PC manufacturers for pre-installation of a Windows LinkedIn application or tile that would favor LinkedIn on an exclusive basis and thereby bar the distribution of competing professional social networking services,” added Smith.