Microsoft Buys Yammer

Microsoft sheds a whooping $1.2 billion to buy Yammer. And why not, Yammer is a very useful enterprise social networking site that gives a secure and private social network to companies. It enables the employers to be more productive, collaborate easily with each other and make decisions quickly. It converts grassroot movements to company-wide strategic initiatives thanks to its being easily accessible for every employer.

According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, Yammer seeks to get workers to adopt its free social networking features in the hope that their employers will catch on and pay for its premium version. Yammer announced it has now reached more than 4 million corporate users, but only 20% out of those are paying for the Yammer services.

Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer is relying on Yammer’s sharing tools for already established Microsoft application, including its words processing and spreadsheet programs, to increase the use of his technology to businesses. Yammer represents an addition to the portfolio of complementary cloud services that Microsoft already offers.

Yammer was launched in 2008 and presently 85% of its users are employers of the companies listed in the Fortune 500. The main reasons to build such a site were to enable social networking within the organization/company, simplify the connections employers, share documents or files and make decision quickly after meetings.

With the amalgamation of Microsoft and Yammer, Yammer will get a quick access to technology, expertise and resources that are at the basis of innovation. This will translate in better and improved services to Yammers’ users.