Yammer agrees to Microsoft's $1 billion acquisition offer

Well, this is interesting. Our company (Fogbeam Labs) are working on products in this same "Enterprise 2.0" space: social-networks for the enterprise, knowledge management with a social twist, social-search for the enterprise, etc.

So, what - if anything - does this mean for us? Well, it confirms that the area we are working in has value, and illustrates the potential we're chasing. And this could actually be good if/when we start trying to raise outside money, as it shows that there are viable exit scenarios in this field. OTOH, it also means we're competing with Microsoft, and it probably makes us look a little behind the curve. That's OK though... the adage about the tortoise and the hare still stands.

On a personal level, I'm excited by this. I like the idea of competing with Microsoft. It's easier to see them as the "evil empire" given their history, and I've never liked Steve Ballmer anyway. These guys I could get fired up about competing with. It's even better that we are a "pure play" Open Source company, where MS has a long history of antipathy for F/OSS.

Congrats to Yammer team. On a side note, we are seeing lot of acquisitions that are > $500M. Buddy Media, Instagram and now Yammer (during last couple of months itself).

I'd rather compete with Microsoft than Yammer in this space; be happy.

Remember, Yammer itself was competing with Microsoft.

I remember laughing at them when they launched at and won TC50. "Twitter for the enterprise! What a dumb idea." I'm laughing all the way to their bank now.

I was at a company a few years ago where the designers and execs were all about using Yammer internally, and I thought it was a joke. A billion dollar joke, turns out.