Salesforce. com considered making a takeover bid for LinkedIn before Microsoft won the professional social networking company over with its own $26 billion offer.
The competition for LinkedIn helps to explain why Microsoft agreed to pay a premium of nearly $9 billion for the company despite LinkedIn’s recent struggles.
It also highlights the intensifying rivalry among a handful of giant software companies that are vying for leadership in the fast-growing cloud computing market.
Marc Benioff, Salesforce's chief executive, said he had hired Goldman Sachs to advise on a possible bid for LinkedIn and had given the company "a solid look".
Compared with Microsoft’s net cash and investments of $70bn, Salesforce only has net cash of about $2bn and a stock market value of $55bn, leaving it in a weak position to compete with Microsoft’s large, all-cash offer.
Mr Benioff’s comments, made in an interview with online news site Recode, were confirmed by the company.
– Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2016
