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LinkedIn acquires social-selling vendor PointDrive

Microsoft's latest acquisition, LinkedIn, just bought PointDrive, a social-selling app vendor.
Written by Mary Jo Foley, Senior Contributing Editor

LinkedIn -- which is in the process of being acquired by Microsoft -- has bought social-selling vendor PointDrive.

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LinkedIn announced the PointDrive acquisition on LinkedIn on July 26. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

PointDrive has an application that allows sales people to package their sales content for prospects and customers. LinkedIn is planning to integrate PointDrive's app with its Sales Solutions line.

"We believe that combining our network and product with their content-sharing application will help to better position LinkedIn as a platform where sales professionals can build stronger relationships with customers and prospects," said LinkedIn Vice President David Thacker.

PointDrive plans to support its current customers but not take on any new ones, according to a post by Bill Burnett, PointDrive founder and CEO. He noted that PointDrive's development and product teams will relocate to LinkedIn's San Francisco office, while customer-facing personnel will stay in Chicago at PointDrive's headquarters.

Microsoft announced plans to buy LinkedIn for $26.2bn in June. Microsoft is expected to integrate its Dynamics ERP and CRM products with LinkedIn's data and algorithms after its deal gets regulatory approval. Microsoft officials said they expect the deal to close before the end of calendar 2016.

This isn't the first time Microsoft was in the midst of acquiring a company, which, in turn, acquired another company. Microsoft was in the midst of buying Skype when Skype bought GroupMe in 2011.

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