Microsoft Buying Yammer for $1.2B

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Damn, it sure seems like the new trend these days is to drop a billion or two on an unproven internet startup. :eek:

Yammer specializes in creating private social networks so employees within the same company can keep tabs on what colleagues are working on. That's similar to how Facebook's online social network allows friends and families to track what's happening in each other's personal lives.
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So...after spending 8.5 billion on Skype, who probably aren't worth 1, who have made next to no profit ever since they started, now a billion for something they could have just done themselves...

Tax writeoff? :D
 
Ya MS is terrible with takeovers. It takes them forever to execute their vision on a take over. In that same time they could have simply copied the product and included it in office / live and killed everyone.
 
I wonder why they are buying these random companies and not doing anything with them. Do they see them as a potential threat to something they might be working on?
 
Actually they are doing a lot with Skype and Yammer is something that does fit in with Microsoft business collaboration efforts. Not saying that didn't overpay for them though.
 
After reading the article, I still have no idea what Yammer even does or what Microsoft is trying to integrate into Office by buying it.

khansolo said:
You guys remember when they bought out Compu-Global-Hyper-Mega-Net?
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Now -that- buyout I do remember! :p
 
Yammer is like Twitter for the enterprise, basically it's a business collaboration tool that lets people do in the enterprise what they do personally and tools like it and Jive are actually kind of hot right now. We're starting to use Jive where I work.
 
heatlesssun said:
Yammer is like Twitter for the enterprise, basically it's a business collaboration tool that lets people do in the enterprise what they do personally and tools like it and Jive are actually kind of hot right now. We're starting to use Jive where I work.
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Oh really? I suppose that makes sense that Microsoft is wanting a piece of that pie before it grows into a market where there are firmly entrenched leaders and they have to come in making a product of their own as an underdog competitor. Thanks for the extra information.
 
Yeah, Microsoft has been trying to add this stuff to SharePoint and has to some degree but it's not proven to be very popular. Yammer does fit in well with their enterprise business model on paper.
 
I take it they want this and Skype to be part of the Office 365 utilities that they want to push out. I am totally on board with that.
 
AthlonXP said:
I take it they want this and Skype to be part of the Office 365 utilities that they want to push out. I am totally on board with that.
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It's not a bad idea, but it is a ton of money they wasted on something that doesn't SEEM like it would have taken long to develop from an idea to something tangible.
 
Good plan. Buy the company, let it continue doing its own thing (Skype, etc), and simultaneously use its technology in your other products.

Definitely better than the epic fail that was Winamp + AOL.
 
Not much of a risk. 1.2 billion could fall out of Bill Gates' pocket and he wouldn't pick it up. They've got more money than they can spend so might as well do something with it.
 
heatlesssun said:
Yammer is like Twitter for the enterprise, basically it's a business collaboration tool that lets people do in the enterprise what they do personally and tools like it and Jive are actually kind of hot right now. We're starting to use Jive where I work.
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Ahhhh... that makes a lot of sense to me, actually. IM for enterprise is really big too and I used it at my last job, and this is a logical extension to that.
 
MacLeod said:
Not much of a risk. 1.2 billion could fall out of Bill Gates' pocket and he wouldn't pick it up. They've got more money than they can spend so might as well do something with it.
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Bill Gates? You must mean the guy that retired from Microsoft a few years ago and runs the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. What does he have to do with Microsoft?
 
SkribbelKat said:
Bill Gates? You must mean the guy that retired from Microsoft a few years ago and runs the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. What does he have to do with Microsoft?
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I think you're misunderstanding what he said.

Bill Gates = guy who would not pick up pocket change

MS = is valued several billions, can afford a little bit of their money on this and not lose much.

thus the connection between the both of them, would not impact the company too much.

Plus he's still on the board of directors (chairman) for MS, so his thoughts impact just as much for this acquisition.

He may not be the CEO and do the day to day operations, but when a company makes a big decision, he's much part of it.
 
MacLeod said:
Not much of a risk. 1.2 billion could fall out of Bill Gates' pocket and he wouldn't pick it up. They've got more money than they can spend so might as well do something with it.
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Steve Balmer's running Microsoft now.
 
Burticus said:
Running it directly into the ground. I wish Balmer would go away already.
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I wouldn't go that far. Windows Phone has improved dramatically since Gates left, and Office 2007 ribbon happened during Gates reign and you had the UI change outcry then too but Microsoft's still around.
 
wiseoracle said:
I think you're misunderstanding what he said.

Bill Gates = guy who would not pick up pocket change

MS = is valued several billions, can afford a little bit of their money on this and not lose much.

thus the connection between the both of them, would not impact the company too much.

Plus he's still on the board of directors (chairman) for MS, so his thoughts impact just as much for this acquisition.

He may not be the CEO and do the day to day operations, but when a company makes a big decision, he's much part of it.
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6.4% of the shares belong to him. Yes, he holds a rather large interest in the company. That doesn't mean that he can't be easily out voted or even really cares so much about what happens on a day-to-day basis.

Burticus said:
Running it directly into the ground. I wish Balmer would go away already.
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But he's hot!
 
Azhar said:
I wouldn't go that far. Windows Phone has improved dramatically since Gates left, and Office 2007 ribbon happened during Gates reign and you had the UI change outcry then too but Microsoft's still around.
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Yeah... and Vista and Windows 8.

Office will continue to print money no matter what, they don't need to innovate it.
 
SkribbelKat said:
6.4% of the shares belong to him. Yes, he holds a rather large interest in the company. That doesn't mean that he can't be easily out voted or even really cares so much about what happens on a day-to-day basis.
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Trust me, he still cares. Maybe not about this, but it's like letting your kid go in the big world. Yeah you don't have to raise them or pay for their shit, but you still care about them.
 
Isn't that what services like LinkedIn are for? For colleagues to keep tabs on each other?
 
is lunch break not good enough anymore to keep up to date about what people are doing in a company? all this "social networking" crap is losing the "social" component about it.
 
How in the world is this company worth 1.2 billion? I've never even heard of Yammer. Also, shouldn't employees be hard at work and not updating their status every several minutes?
 
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