Microsoft
led by CEO Steve Ballmer buys Yammer for $1.2 Billion
Business
Leaders-Current Event
After all the talk Microsoft lead by CEO Steve
Ballmer finally bought Yammer, a social corporate networking site. Yammer enables those of the business world to
interact, socialize, and collaborate through a private internal network. In a sense Yammer is like Facebook but more
so for the corporate world.
Microsoft and its CEO Ballmer are attempting to be
the business leaders in internal corporate networking, yet many speculate the
move has come too late in the game. In
this course we have learned that it is not enough to copy what a firm is doing
to gain competitive advantage, but to differentiate and sustain a competitive
advantage is key. With this said Ballmer
has his work cut out for him if he is going to go head to head with the
networking giants who already know the game.
With other networking sites already available
Microsoft will have to differentiate themselves if Yammer is going to
survive. A comment made by Trip Chowdhry
in USA Today claimed “"Microsoft is too late to the social party,". However some proponents of the decision made
by Ballmer believe the move will be to Microsoft’s advantage. Larry Cannel was quoted in Yahoo News saying,
“This acquisition will immediately make Microsoft a strong competitor in the
enterprise social market”.
Microsoft will attempt to place the importance of
Yammer alongside other programs such as excel, outlook and power point which
are used on a daily basis in many companies.
If Yammer succeeds the way other Microsoft programs have in the past,
then it is possible that business leaders will have to familiarize themselves
with the network. In the event that the
private network hits, business professions should get familiarized with the
site so that when the time comes to use it they already know their way
around. After all we have learned in
this course it will be interesting to see how CEO Ballmer portrays his strategic
management skills with the acquisition of Yammer.
References:
Acohido, Byron.
Microsoft’s Yammer Deal May Cost Too Much, Come Too Late. 25
Jun 2012. USA Today.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-06-25/microsoft-yammer-aquisition/55811172/1
Pepitone, Julianne.
Microsoft Buys Social Office Network Yammer for $1.2 Billion. 25 Jun
2012. CNNMoney.
http://money.cnn.com/2012/06/25/technology/microsoft-yammer/?source=cnn_bin
Rigby, Bill.
Microsoft to Buy Yammer for $1.2 Billion. 25 Jun 2012.
Yahoo News.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/microsoft-buy-yammer-1-2-013912054.html
First off, you should have put the links directly into the story. I would have liked to check out some of the links, but am too lazy to copy and paste them.
ReplyDeleteAnyways, Microsoft's strategy is to be late to markets. They are an analyzer firm. They analyze markets, see what the deficiencies are, then create a product better than what is already offered and exploit the deficiencies. They used this strategy in the business world (see Microsoft Office), the gaming industry (see Microsoft Kinect) and they are using this strategy in the tablet market. I have no doubts that Microsoft is late to the game on purpose.
Good article! Someone mention that they are too late in the game. Not necessarily, they are improving what’s out there. So their beginning was late but their finish will be well recognized, just like their other products.
ReplyDelete