Microsoft expands use of LinkedIn

Microsoft is adding links between its business-focused software and LinkedIn, the biggest move yet to make use of the company’s largestever acquisition.

LinkedIn now boasts more than 500 million registered users, Microsoft said Monday, up from 467 million in October, when LinkedIn released its last quarterly earnings report as a publicly traded company. Microsoft’s $26 billion acquisition of the Mountain View company, announced in June, was finalized in December.

Beginning in July, Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 software for salespeople will draw on LinkedIn’s trove of workplace data, allowing users to bring in resume information and other details to inform interactions with potential customers.

Another tool to help hiring managers will loop in LinkedIn profile information and the site’s recruiting tools within Dynamics.

Scott Guthrie, who leads Microsoft’s Cloud and Enterprise unit, announced the plans in a blog post.

Access to the software, which stitches together Dynamics and LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator, will cost $135 per user, per month. Microsoft says that rate is about half the price of competitive software.

Microsoft executives have said LinkedIn, the default Internet resume portal, would be used to make the company’s existing software smarter.

They also hope to grow LinkedIn’s standalone business. In an effort to avoid the missteps of Microsoft’s disastrous Nokia acquisition, executives have said LinkedIn will operate with a great degree of autonomy.