It has been more than a year since Microsoft paid just over $1 billion to take control of social network, Yammer. Given the investment, the company certainly needs to see a return, and that is what is in the works now. Today, Microsoft announces its latest round of updates, bringing Yammer to all Enterprise customers, and highlighting a few new features as well.
“As we continue to hammer away at our vision to integrate social into the tools people use every day, I’m pleased to take this opportunity to announce another product availability milestone and some important feature updates,” states Microsoft’s Jared Spataro. The company set this plan in motion last March, when it announced the inclusion of Yammer Enterprise in the Office 365 Enterprise Plans. Now it continues that vision, announcing that all existing Office 365 Enterprise plan customers will receive licenses for Yammer Enterprise.
To go along with this, Microsoft is also updating the way it licenses external users, announcing “We believe that people work better when they can collaborate with business contacts both inside and outside their company.” This means that Office 365 Enterprise customers are no longer required to purchase Yammer Enterprise licenses for external users within their external networks.
Finally, the software giant outlined the recent updates it has made to Yammer. These include mobile apps, which are released in conjunction with the “Get it Done” day, and Document Conversations — “Social is most effective when it’s woven into the apps people use every day. Now users can start a Yammer conversation for any document that is stored in a SharePoint Online document library or SkyDrive Pro web client. This enhancement makes it easier for users to collaborate, as well as improves the discoverability of the document by others.” All of these updates are effective today.
