Everything about Yammer SharePoint integration– To Yammer or Not to!
Social networking is catching on fast with Enterprises. The concept of social networking has evolved to an extent that it has its footprint across enterprises today. Long seen as a pioneer in enterprise social collaboration space,
the well-known enterprise social software – Yammer is fast becoming the most preferred platform for social networking among enterprises. Here’s an interesting read to get a peek into “Yammer”. …….Please Don’t Yammer!!!
What is Yammer ?
The word “Yammer” means –To complain peevishly or whimperingly; whine (courtesy: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/yammer).The dictionary meaning of Yammer may have negative connotation tied to it, but when it comes to social networking within enterprises, Yammer has achieved big feats to an extent that it has given some of the big shots like Microsoft, a run for their money in collaboration space. A practice that was adopted in a start-up has now reached an inflection point, one where enterprise social strategies will be woven to drive revenue.
History of Yammer – the Who’s Who of Yammer!!
Yammer was initially used as a productivity tool in a Start-up founded by the Silicon Valley veteran and former PayPal COO David Sacks – Geni.com – A Los Angeles-based genealogy and family tree website. The idea behind using Yammer within Geni was to enable their employees to stay connected. (There were only 30 employees for which this tool was built). An interesting episode –Yammer was able to out-rise Geni.com by raising $142 Million as against Geni.com’ $16.7million in a fundraising round. Read more
Here’s what David Sacks has to say “Yammer started as an internal productivity tool at Geni. We basically built the tool to help people stay connected, and we’ve been using it internally for six months. We have about 30 employees at Geni, and have about 20,000 messages on yammer. It been incredibly successful at Geni, and is the center of the company’s culture. We recently decided we should spin it out into a separate company, so that other companies can use the product as well. About a month ago, we spun it out and premiered it at TechCrunch50, as you know, and won that event”.
Here’s a full Interview of David Sacks:
Microsoft Yammer Acquisition
The growing popularity of enterprise social networking and yammers pre-dominance in enterprise social space propelled Microsoft to buy Yammer at $1.2billions to integrate it with its revamped flagship product in collaboration space- SharePoint 2013.
SharePoint 2013 and Yammer Integration – Social Media Features
SharePoint 2013 and Yammer integration raised a lot of , whether it was the right move by Microsoft. The SharePoint community was quick to comment and discuss about various nuances of this integration. Some said, SharePoint integration with Yammer might confuse the end users who are used to SharePoint social features. While others opined, Microsoft Yammer acquisition was part of the dominance strategy by Microsoft in collaboration space. While opinions might be endless, Microsoft acquisition of Yammer and its integration with SharePoint 2013 stands to prove a point, enterprise social networking is here to stay. The future of Yammer and SharePoint integration will be an interesting thing to watch. Read more on SharePoint Adoption and Social Media Features That Help by Nagendra Rao.
