Microsoft linked to $1.2bn Yammer buyout

Onlookers suggest business social network will enhance Microsoft Office software as reports claim deal will close shortly

Business social media platform Yammer is set to be bought by Microsoft in $1.2bn (£770m) deal, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

Yammer, which was launched in 2008 and is used by more than 200,000 companies worldwide, is a private business social media platform which enables employees to communicate collaborate in the workplace.

The business communication tool, which recently launched new file sharing capabilities, could add more features to Microsoft Office.

Richard Edwards, principal analyst at research firm Ovum, believes that social networking is a big part of employees' lives.

He said: "Platforms such as Yammer make business conversations and activities highly visible, searchable, and discoverable.

"It is not just Microsoft eyeing up the opportunities afforded by the Facebook-led social paradigm shift. Established enterprise IT vendors, such as IBM, Oracle, Salesforce.com, and SAP, are all busy adding social capabilities to their business software solutions."

Microsoft's current social platforms are likely to be strongly enhanced by Yammer, according to Edwards.

"Microsoft already has a product that touts social capabilities - SharePoint Server - but this was designed and built in the pre-Facebook, pre-cloud era.

"Yammer is a new breed of enterprise collaboration solution, designed from the ground up to exploit social, mobile, and cloud technologies, and would sit neatly alongside Skype, the communication product that Microsoft acquired this time last year for $8.5bn," he continued.