What is the deal?

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

has been bought by Microsoft.

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

The deal value is 26 billion dollars.

Why would Linkedin sell?

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

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

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

Why would Microsoft buy Linkedin?

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

All those software things you do at work.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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