Microsoft to Buy LinkedIn for $26b

Microsoft has won European Union’s approval for its $26 billion bid for acquisition of LinkedIn, the professional social network after the software giant agreed to safeguards to assuage antitrust concerns, a report said, TradeArabia reported. The EU said it was clearing the deal on the condition that Microsoft allowed other professional networking sites access to programming commands for its Office applications and cloud-computing services for the next five years. It must also grant computer manufacturers the option not to install the LinkedIn shortcut on desktop devices, the EU said.