Microsoft purchases corporate social network Yammer for $1.2 billion

Microsoft has pulled the trigger on a deal that will see them acquire corporate social network Yammer in an effort to keep pace with other similar offerings. As rumors earlier this month suggested, Microsoft has agreed to pay $1.2 billion…

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I think there's more to this acquisition than what most people think. Or at least that's what I hope, since 1.2 billion dollars a is a lot of money to just play catch up. Something tells me there really was a very good reason for the purchase.

Seems like microsoft could have saved a billion dollars by adding a forum feature to Sharepoint. What a waste.

It's almost as if Microsoft is just gobbling up other companies at this point just to stay afloat (if that makes sense). To me it seems as if they're running out of ideas so they are buying out others to try and keep up.

Wow.. that's interesting.. windows 8 and yammer...could they break Facebook? As bling a partner with... :/

I like this and really hope that a big company like microsoft can use their resources to promote the benefits of "social" networking tools in the work place.

My last and current job have both been for FTSE 100 companies and as they're both quite "old" (both literally and in leadership attitude towards this sort of thing), neither have anything like yammer. Just good old email/phone/IM. Feels like a missed opportunity, I hope they catch on soon.

"social networking" is getting old. Too late M$