The Yammerfication of the work place [TechEd]

When you spend more than a billion dollars on a social platform, make sure you do something amazing with it. Microsoft seems to be doing that with Yammer.

Enterprise communication has evolved in the last few years moving from phone, email, instant messaging, voice and video and now social networking.

Microsoft is making strides to dominate the enterprise scene, and it seems its acquisition of enterprise social network Yammer the tool it plans on using to do so. According to Michael O’Donovan, Office 365 Solution Specialist at Microsoft, Yammer will soon replace some prominent features on the company’s native collaboration platform, SharePoint.

The company’s reimagined version of Yammer allows people to integrate via their social graph. Working as social network with the work place with many of the same features as existing social networks. Users are able to embed Yammer feed into any web application as well as send activities into Yammer. There is also a Global Store, where purchases can be made.

Taking over SharePoint

Starting this month, Yammer will replace Sharepoint’s current newsfeed, and users will be able to post documents to Yammer from Sharepoint. Search Yammer from Sharepoint and the company has integrated the Yammer newsfeed into Microsoft CRM Online.

Yammer will also replace some of Sharepoint’s online components in the form of “Yammer Sharepoint apps”. Users will have to option to replace Sharepoint online newsfeed with Yammer and the company is hoping to roll out a better single sign-on experience. Microsoft wants to great a more consistent user experience between Yammer and SharePoint. Users will also be able to use Sharepoint as a document repository for Yammer.

At Microsoft’s Africa TechEd event, the company outlined four areas that where the enterprise social networking tool is proving valuable for business:

Employee engagement: According the Redmond-based company, Yammer gives employees a voice and encourages them to make a difference.

Team collaboration: Through the enterprise social network, employees are able to get more done by connecting with various stakeholders such as customers and partners.

Connected organisation: Yammer users are able to “bring their intranet to life” with social, mobile and business data.

Business Agility: Yammer enables innovation and adaptation in the ever-changing business world.