Microsoft buys a business social network for a billion dollars

Microsoft agreed to buy a "professional" social network for business relations and contacts Yammer. The transaction may be announced during the day on June 15, although negotiations were confidential and the press services of Microsoft and Yammer did not say anything about them, reports Cybersecurity.ru .

Buying Yammer will help Microsoft add social functions to the family of products for corporate customers and will increase the competitiveness of the company.

According to informed sources of Bloomberg, a software giant is ready to give more than a billion dollars for the service.

The social network Yammer provides its participants with the opportunity similar to Facebook (uploading photos, video, publication of statuses, finding contacts, etc.), but is intended for corporate application. The social network was launched in 2008 by David Sax, the former PayPal operating director, and more than 200 thousand companies are used, including Ford Motor, Ebay, Telefonica O2, etc. Yammer services are used by employees of more than 80% of the Fortune 500 list.

Yammer is registered in San Francisco and is also engaged in the development of socially oriented business software. During the work, Yammer attracted more than 140 million dollars from venture companies, including Charles River Ventures and Emergence Capital Partners.