Microsoft agreed Monday to buy LinkedIn for $26.2 billion in cash, the largest acquisition in the software company’s history and a sweeping wager that the digital map of professional relationships can make Office, cloud computing and business software more valuable.

Under the companies’ announcement, Microsoft will pay $196 a share, about 50 percent above LinkedIn’s closing price on Friday. LinkedIn will keep its name, culture and independence, with Jeff Weiner remaining chief executive and reporting to Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella. The companies expect the transaction to close this year, subject to shareholder and regulatory approval.

The deal would join Microsoft’s reach across corporate computing with LinkedIn’s network of 433 million members, its recruiting services, advertising business and growing stream of professional content. For Nadella, who has pushed Microsoft beyond its Windows-centered past, the acquisition is a test of whether the company can connect the software people use to work with the identities, colleagues, job histories and news that surround their careers.

A 50 percent premium for a unique network

The price reflects both LinkedIn’s scarcity and its vulnerability. No other large platform holds a comparable graph of professional identities and employer relationships. But LinkedIn shares had fallen sharply in February after a disappointing forecast raised doubts about slowing growth. Microsoft’s offer restores much of that lost value in a single step.

The formal LinkedIn filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission says the merger agreement was signed June 11. A separate Microsoft filing identifies the acquisition vehicle and incorporates the transaction documents. The full merger agreement contains the conditions, termination provisions and operating restrictions that will govern LinkedIn before closing.

Microsoft plans to finance the transaction primarily by issuing new debt. Its cash-rich balance sheet gives it room for a purchase that would strain most technology companies, but the premium leaves little margin for strategic drift. The company must preserve the trust and engagement that give LinkedIn’s data value while finding integrations capable of supporting the price.

From software licenses to a professional graph

Nadella’s rationale is built around combining two kinds of information. Office and Dynamics know what workers are doing: writing documents, arranging meetings, managing sales leads and communicating with colleagues. LinkedIn knows who those workers are, where they have worked, which skills they claim and how they are connected. Joined carefully, those systems could recommend experts, surface relevant news, improve recruiting and add context to customer relationships.

In a message accompanying the announcement, Microsoft said the companies could accelerate LinkedIn as well as Office 365 and Dynamics. Nadella described opportunities to weave professional identity into Outlook and other productivity tools, while LinkedIn could use Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure and distribution.

The strategy also expands Microsoft’s position in data-driven business services. LinkedIn’s recruiting products are its economic engine: employers pay to find and contact candidates, while sales professionals and advertisers pay to reach defined professional audiences. That model produces recurring revenue and data that are difficult for a new rival to reproduce.

Yet the combination raises product and privacy questions. Users provide career histories and connections for networking and employment, not necessarily for integration across a software empire. Microsoft will need to make the benefits visible without creating the impression that professional identity has become an invisible layer of every Office interaction.

Independence promised after mixed acquisition history

Microsoft has promised LinkedIn unusual autonomy. Weiner will continue to lead the business, and the brand will remain separate. That structure acknowledges that large technology acquisitions often lose value when the buyer imposes its organization too quickly or weakens the acquired product’s distinct culture.

The company’s record is mixed. Microsoft’s 2011 purchase of Skype for $8.5 billion gave it an enormous communications network, but integration has been gradual. Its $7.2 billion acquisition of Nokia’s handset business led to large write-downs and job cuts. LinkedIn differs because it is a growing software and services platform rather than a hardware turnaround, but the scale of the new transaction makes those precedents unavoidable.

Weiner told employees that LinkedIn’s daily operations would remain largely unchanged. Reporting on his explanation by Time emphasized his view that Microsoft under Nadella had become more agile and aligned with LinkedIn’s mission. LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman called the agreement a “re-founding moment,” language that places the deal closer to a strategic partnership than an ordinary absorption.

Regulators and rivals will examine control of workplace data

The acquisition must pass antitrust review in the United States and abroad. Microsoft is not the dominant professional social network, which may reduce straightforward overlap concerns. The harder questions involve leverage: whether ownership of Windows, Office and Dynamics could allow Microsoft to favor LinkedIn over rival networks, recruiting services or customer-management systems.

The companies’ joint release filed with the SEC stresses separate operation, but regulators will look beyond corporate form to product defaults, data access and interoperability. Salesforce, Oracle and other enterprise-software competitors will also assess whether LinkedIn’s data gives Microsoft an advantage in sales and human-resources applications.

Investors initially rewarded LinkedIn and marked Microsoft slightly lower, a common reaction when an acquirer pays a substantial premium. Reuters described the transaction as Nadella’s boldest move to turn Microsoft into a force in next-generation computing. The comparison is apt because the purchase is less about adding a single product than changing the company’s organizing idea.

Windows once connected Microsoft to the personal computer. LinkedIn could connect it to the worker. Whether that connection becomes a useful professional service or an expensive collection of accounts will depend on execution after regulators and shareholders have had their say. At $26.2 billion, Microsoft is paying in advance for the belief that identity and relationships are becoming as essential to workplace software as documents and spreadsheets.