Microsoft pays $1.2bn for Yammer
June 26, 2012
Microsoft has bought the four-year-old business social network Yammer for $1.2 billion. The purchase of Yammer, dubbed “Facebook for the workplace”, is the latest instalment in Microsoft’s bid to protect its dominant Office products from a challenge by Google. The service claims to have more than 5 million corporate users at groups including Ford, Shell, Deloitte and Ebay.
It comes little more than a year after Microsoft paid $8.5 billion for the video-calling firm Skype in the biggest acquisition in the company’s 37-year history.