Microsoft Buys Yammer For $1.2 Billion 72
Posted
by
timothy
from the pretty-soon-you're-talking-real-money dept.
from the pretty-soon-you're-talking-real-money dept.
itwbennett writes "Confirming the rumor that emerged earlier this month, Microsoft has bought enterprise social networking software maker Yammer for $1.2 billion. Yammer will become part of Microsoft's Office Division." If you're not familiar with Yammer, it's essentially a messaging system that gives more control to administrators than does using an outside company's service, like AOL's AIM. "Enterprise social networking software," as Wikipedia explains it, means that Yammer "is used for private communication within organizations or between organizational members and pre-designated groups, making it an example of enterprise social software. ... Access to a Yammer network is determined by a user's Internet domain, so only those with appropriate email addresses may join their respective networks."
Yammer sent this today (Score:5, Informative)
From: Yammer [mailto:noreply@yammer.com]
Sent: 26 June 2012 8:41 AM
To: Me
Subject: Yammer Signs Definitive Agreement to be Acquired by Microsoft
Dear Yammer Customer,
I am pleased to announce that Yammer has signed a definitive agreement to be acquired by Microsoft. After the close of the deal, Microsoft will continue to invest in Yammer's freemium, stand-alone service, and the team will remain under my direction within the Microsoft Office Division. With the backing of Microsoft, our aim is to massively accelerate our vision to change the way work gets done with software that is built for the enterprise and loved by users.
As a Yammer customer, you will continue to get a secure, private social network—delivered with the same focus on simplicity, innovation, and cross-platform experiences. Over time, you’ll see more and more connections to SharePoint, Office365, Dynamics and Skype. Yammer’s expertise in empowering employees, driving adoption, and delivering rapid innovation in the cloud will not only continue to power our stand-alone service, but also anchor the communication and collaboration experiences in Office 365.
You can find more information in this press release and our blog post.
Sincerely,
David Sacks
Yammer CEO and Founder
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25% Time Savings: Download The Total Economic Impact of Yammer (April 2011), a commissioned study by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Yammer.
Re:a bit high (Score:5, Informative)
They are not buying the technology/software, they are buying the customers and market share ("three million users and 80,000 companies worldwide, including 80 percent of the Fortune 500" according to Wikipedia).
1,200 MILLION!? (Score:4, Informative)
Seriously? What is with the overpayment of these companies.
Is this like sports, and high priced overpaid players. Where stupid GM's pay ridiculous prices because they know other stupid GM's will also pay ridiculous prices?
i.e. we better shell out 1.2 Billion for these guys before Apple, Google, Facebook, etc... do!
Re:The client (Score:1, Informative)
You idiot, you missed the most obvious reasons:
1) it isn't supported on linux anymore.
2) Its not open source.
Major add-on to SharePoint (Score:5, Informative)
I have experimented a bit with Yammer, to find that its user interface is as simple to use as Facebook and similar websites. Adding photos or any kind of document to a Yammer "repository" seems to me like it will make it easier to search and find it later on.
In comparison, my (also limited) experience with SharePoint is that if internal communications in a company were handled there rather than via email, stuff would be easier to find and actual knowledge bases for products and client projects would become easier to create and maintain.
The problem with SP (IMHO) is that it's not as easy to use as email or any common website. It is very easy to feel discouraged from using it and just keep sending email attachments all the time. I suspect that the existing developments that bridge Yammer and SP will be very useful to help the adoption of SharePoint in those 80K companies already using Yammer.