What is the deal?

到底發生了什麼事呢？

Linkedin, best known for those annoying contact requests from people you barely met a year ago in a meeting,

領英（Linkedin），害你不時收到某場會議裡認識的點頭之交的聯絡人邀請的社群網站，

has been bought by Microsoft.

日前被微軟收購了

The famed creator of Excel, Word, Outlook and Powerpoint and everything you hate about turning on your computer.

微軟發明了 Excel, Word, Outlook 和 Powerpoint 這些害你不想打開電腦的那些軟體

The deal value is 26 billion dollars.

成交金額為 260 億美元

Why would Linkedin sell?

領英為什麼要賣？

Linkedin went public in 2011 and its shares has soared as high as 269 dollars.

領英於2011年上市，股價曾一度高達每股269美元

But concerns about rapidly slowing growth and a lack of profits, led to its shares falling as low as 100 dollars per share.

但隨後，投資人擔心其成長趨緩且收益下降，使得領英的股價跌到每股100美元的低點

The Microsoft deal at 196 dollars is a nice recovery, compared to those depths.

微軟併購後，領英的股價回升到196美元，和之前相比算是好轉了許多

Why would Microsoft buy Linkedin?

微軟為什麼要買？

The company wants to be at the forefront of so called productivity and collaboration.

微軟公司表示他們希望成為「效率」與「合作」的象徵

All those software things you do at work.

也就是那些工作軟體所標榜的精神

It believes it can integrate Linkedin into its software offerings, so office workers can be more efficient or useful.

微軟認為他們能夠將領英納入他們服務的一環，讓使用者更有效率和生產力

Still, Microsoft doesn't have a strong record in acquisitions and Tech MMA is notoriously tricky.

不過，微軟過去併購其他公司的紀錄不甚理想，而在科技領域保要有競爭力向來都不容易

Microsoft's vast war chest for better or worse does allow it to make big bets.

無論如何，微軟龐大的資產會讓公司有本錢進行大動作

The company has a market capitalization of 400 billion dollars and a cash balance of 100 billion dollars.

微軟的市場資本高達4000億美元，現金結存達1000億美元

Because interest rates remain low, it can buy Linkedin for a big premium, without its earnings being diluted very much.

因為利率仍然非常低，微軟能夠溢價購買領英，卻又不至於對公司的收益造成太大的衝擊

What does this deal mean for the rest of the social media space?

這項交易對其他的社群軟體會帶來什麼影響？

While Facebook continues to thrive, the rest of the industry is struggling quite a bit.

臉書持續蓬勃發展，但其他公司卻有些陷入危機

Twitter shares, however, did rally 5% on Monday because there is hope that

不過，本週一推特公司股價倒是上漲了5%，因為微軟的交易讓人們相信

there's another big dumb tech company willing to spend tens of billions of dollars to rescue it.

還是有可能會有某間又大又笨的科技公司願意花數十億美元來救推特

We shall see. This is Sujeet Indap, Financial Times, New York.

我們靜觀其變吧。金融時報 Sujeet Indap，紐約報導。