A new App Directory and platform create seamless social experience across
business applications
SAN FRANCISCO – Oct. 29, 2012 – Yammer, Inc., a best-in-class Enterprise
Social Network and part of the Microsoft Office Division, today announced a
new App Directory and platform at its first customer conference, YamJam ‘
12. The platform offers standard components to more easily build social
networking features, such as feeds, profiles, following and likes, into
business applications. This approach not only helps save developers time, it
also enables enterprise customers to seamlessly connect people,
conversations and data across their business applications – an experience
Yammer calls the “Enterprise Graph.”
The key components of the new platform include the following:
? Embeddable feeds. Yammer now offers embeddable feeds for virtually any
business object, such as a record, document, opportunity or other piece of
data. Previously, Yammer offered embeddable feeds only for Groups and
individuals. The new object feeds allow applications to easily include
conversations about business data in context.
? Embeddable Follow and Like buttons. You can now embed Follow and Like
buttons inside virtually any business application to track updates from
business objects.
? Pages. Similar to Profiles for people, Pages are profiles for business
objects. Pages show recent activity, followers and conversations. By using
Yammer Embed, the same information appears on the business object’s Web
page in the original application. (A note-taking application in Yammer
previously called Pages has been renamed Notes.)
? App Directory. Third-party applications that take advantage of the Yammer
platform now appear in the App Directory after they have been reviewed by
Yammer to ensure they meet certain privacy and security criteria. It is now
easier than ever for enterprise users to discover and install apps inside
Yammer.
The Enterprise Graph
Realizing the power of social networking, a growing number of enterprise
applications are including social features such as profiles, feeds and
connections in their software. Although the new software provides a higher
level of usability than traditional enterprise applications, enterprise
customers can be confronted by the problem of too many social networks
inside their company, which reinforces silos and fragments internal
communication.
The Yammer platform solves this problem of “social network sprawl” by
creating an Enterprise Graph that provides a standard set of social
components. This standardization means that all of a company’s employees
and business data can be brought together in a common conversation layer.
Just as Facebook is creating a social graph for people’s personal lives,
mapping the connections between people, places, music and games, the
Enterprise Graph shows how employees, content and business data are
connected in the workplace.
“This release standardizes enterprise social into a simple set of tools
that the entire industry can use,” said David Sacks, Yammer founder and
corporate vice president, Microsoft Corp. “It will not only save developers
a lot of time reinventing the wheel but also create a uniform social
experience for all employees across their business applications.”
“The future of business is connected, and Enterprise Social Networks are a
critical part of this connectivity. Businesses should be built on the
foundation of an ESN to connect people, data, content and systems,” said
Michael Fauscette, group vice president, Software Business Solutions, IDC.
“Effective execution on its social layer strategy is a reason Yammer was
recognized as a Leader in the IDC Marketscape: Worldwide Enterprise Social
Software 2012 Vendor Analysis.”1
All new features will be available to customers immediately.
About Yammer
Yammer (www.yammer.com) is a best-in-class Enterprise Social Network used by
more than 200,000 organizations worldwide – including 85 percent of the
Fortune 500 – to foster team collaboration, empower employees, drive
business agility and socialize their intranets. Yammer’s freemium business
model lets customers see the value of Yammer before upgrading to the premium
offering. Founded in 2008, Yammer is now part of the Microsoft Office
Division.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in
software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize
their full potential.
1 IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Enterprise Social Software 2012 Vendor
Analysis, doc #237336, October 2012.
