Salesforce throws hissy fit over LinkedIn acquisition

Salesforce has thrown a full-on hissy fit over Microsoft’s $26 billion acquisition of LinkedIn, asking the European Union regulators to investigate antitrust concerns.

The acquisition of the social media platform has caused quite a stir in the industry, mainly because there were few who saw it coming. Salesforce was one of the companies reportedly involved in a heated bidding war which in fact added which resulted in $5 billion being added to the overall value of the organization. Salesforce would appear to be slightly irate after losing the battle, decided the high-road is no fun.

“By gaining ownership of LinkedIn’s unique data-set of over 450 million professionals in more than 200 countries, Microsoft will be able to deny competitors access to that data, and in doing so obtain an unfair competitive advantage,” said Burke Norton, Salesforce’s Chief Legal Officer.

“Salesforce believes this raises significant antitrust and data privacy issues that need to be fully scrutinised by competition and data privacy authorities in the US and the EU.”

In short, Microsoft now has access to juicy data which can now be used to enhance its CRM. It would appear Salesforce also wants to access said juicy data and would like regulatory authorities to set conditions around the acquisition forcing Microsoft to share the juicy data.

Salesforce has seemingly not given up on getting into the social media game, as the CRM giant is rumoured to be sniffing around the Twitter acquisition. The Twitter claims are unconfirmed for the moment, and while it is not out of the question, it doesn’t make as much sense as Salesforce chasing LinkedIn.

The investigation is highly unlikely to put the stopper on the acquisition, though if the Salesforce really wants to be a pain, it could make things slightly difficult. It would have appeared to have picked the right region to throw the hissy fit as the European Commission is currently on the war path to rewrite the digital rule book. One would wonder whether the same complaints would have been made had Salesforce won the LinkedIn bidding war…