LinkedIn hits 500 mn members

Microsoft-owned rofessional social network LinkedIn said yesterday that its membership had hit 500 million, and its user base showed steady growth following its acquisition by Microsoft last year.

"We recently crossed an important and exciting milestone," LinkedIn vice president Aatif Awan said in a blog post.

"We now have half a billion members in 200 countries connecting, and engaging with one another in professional conversations and finding opportunities through these connections on LinkedIn."

Microsoft's $26-billion acquisition of LinkedIn which was completed in December ranked as the biggest-ever deal for a social media company (See: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26.2 bn in cash).

When it was announced last June, LinkedIn counted 433 million registered users.

According to Awan, LinkedIn had some 10 million active job listings, access to nine million companies, and over 100,000 articles published every week.

"A professional community of this size has never existed until now," he wrote.

"The impact of half a billion professionals connecting and communicating is very real, and very accessible to anyone who wants to take part today."

Meanwhile, Microsoft Corp will roll out upgrades to its sales software that integrated data from LinkedIn, an initiative that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told Reuters was central to the company's long-term strategy for building specialised business software.

The improvements to Dynamics 365, as Microsoft's sales software was called, posed a challenge to market leader Salesforce.com. Dynamics 365 was the first major product to emerge from Microsoft's $26 billion acquisition of LinkedIn, the business-focused social network.

The new features will scour through a salesperson's email, calendar and LinkedIn relationships to evaluate their relationship with a potential customer. The system would recommend ways to save an at-risk deal, like calling in a co-worker who was connected to the potential customer on LinkedIn.

The enhancements, which would be offered this summer, would require Microsoft Dynamics customers to also be LinkedIn customers.