NOTE: this article was originally published on May 10th before it was announced that Microsoft will acquire Linkedin for $26.2B. Not surprisingly, Salesforce was bidding to buy Linkedin [http://www.wsj.com/articles/rival-bidding-forced-microsoft-to-raise-its-offer-for-linkedin-1467417326] as well. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Linkedin has lost an opportunity to take on Salesforce and become a