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Microsoft Buys Yammer For $1.2 Billion
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."
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.
So what is Yammer for?
Maybe it's for helping bosses to feel less jealous of your Facebook account, so they don't have to demand its password?
*rimshot*
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).
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
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!
It is basically an internal Twitter for a company. At least for larger companies, you have upper management giving out tweets (or yams or whatever they want to call them) until they get bored with it. Low-level employees are afraid to write anything interesting out of a fear of accidentally writing something management will get upset about. So you get to see a few boring posting from upper management and that's about it.
Take away the fear and it would be a good internal tool for a company. However, there is no barrier to entry for competitors.
And that was my experience with Yammer.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Office 2013 Communicator for Windows (Premium|Business|Home) Edition 1.0 for Windows 7/8.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
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.
Exactly. Microsoft could build something like this easily. The hard part is signing up companies.
I'm shocked that there are 80,000 companies actively using it though. That seems absurdly high to me, especially since I've never talked to anybody who has anything more flattering than "meh" to say about Yammer.
Hell I like several of MSFT's products and I'll be the first to say that anyone who doesn't think Forbes was right on the money calling Ballmer the worst CEO needs to reread TFA a few times. I mean does anyone seriously believe Yammer is worth 1.2 BILLION dollars?
It is THIS kind of shit, this right here, which is why he deserves worst CEO. Instead of actually hiring good people and more importantly giving them the freedom to innovate Ballmer simply blows through money like Charlie Sheen at a porn convention on a coke binge, which will take years to pay off as you point out but I would point out instead the likelihood it'll never pay off at all, ala Kin. This is the yahoo deal all over again on the WTF scale.
Seriously is there NO hope of getting rid of this clown? Frankly the longer he is CEO the more the pepsi guy at Apple just looks misunderstood. The longer Ballmer is CEO the more MSFT looks like AOL, a once giant company that is so bogged down in PHB bullshit and the desire to tie everything to their core product that they couldn't innovate or have an original thought if their lives depended on it. Gates may have been an evil bastard but at least he was an evil bastard that knew WTF he was doing, Ballmer is just a buffoon.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I don't believe Yammer will be worth 1.2$B after all the customers flee. Maybe they have some patents in a portfolio that MS is really after.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Meh is right. Lies, damn lies, and statistics. You could say my company uses it. Of the roughly 2200 people that work here, I believe 5 have Yammer accounts.