Facebook isn't the only company that has billions to toss at innovative young tech startups; late last night, the Wall Street Journal claimed that Microsoft flexed its money muscle at Yammer, an enterprise-focused social networking and collaboration service that reportedly agreed to sell itself to Redmond for a cool $1.2 billion.
Yammer's software lets team members communicate as well as collaborate, thanks to its file-sharing capabilities; think of it as a mixture of Facebook and a traditional wiki.
Microsoft is likely looking to integrate Yammer's chat-like service into SharePoint or the Office suite. Plus, Yammer itself acquired an Office-friendly company called OneDrum back in April. OneDrum's software adds Dropbox-like synchronized file sharing and Google Docs-esque real-time collaboration to Microsoft Office. Both functions would obviously add a lot of extra value to the core product.
Neither Microsoft nor Yammer have commented on the rumored acquisition, and the Wall Street Journal says that it's "unclear when the Yammer acquisition will be completed and announced."
Image credit: Yammer
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