Software giant Microsoft has purchased a business social startup named Yammer for $1.2 billion. Announcing the deal Microsoft says that will make the startup a part of its Office Division.
“The acquisition of Yammer underscores our commitment to deliver technology that businesses need and people love,” Steve Ballmer, Microsoft chief executive, said about the purchase in a statement. “Yammer adds a best-in-class enterprise social networking service to Microsoft’s growing portfolio of complementary cloud services.
On the other hand, excited Yammer chief executive David Sacks said: “When we started Yammer four years ago, we set out to do something big.”
“We love the way Yammer built on a notion that things could grow virally. Consumerization of IT (technology at work) is a trend that, more than any other company out there, Yammer has gotten right,” he added.
Yammer, an enterprise social network service, was launched in September 2008. More than three million users and 80,000 companies worldwide use Yammer, according to TechCrunch.
