Microsoft and Yammer....Why? Why Now? < Real Story Group Blog

Check the link below for Tony Byrne's analysis

"The Wall Street Journal is confirming yesterday's rumor that Microsoft will acquire enterprise microblogging service Yammer for a generous $1.2 billion.
People are tripping over themselves to explain why this makes sense, but to me, it's a big shocker, and speaks volumes about what's happening -- or not happening -- in Redmond right now.
It's a shocker because Microsoft almost never makes acquisitions in technology segments that SharePoint nominally covers. Redmond has fiercely protected the SharePoint brand, copying innovations from smaller partners, rather than acquiring them. Microsoft has focused its SharePoint integration efforts on Office (the real cash-cow), and worked hard to keep the massive SharePoint codebase reasonably coherent. The downside to this approach is SharePoint's very sluggish, triennial update schedule.
So why did Microsoft break the mold here? Here's two plausible theories."

Microsoft and Yammer....Why? Why Now? < Real Story Group Blog