Microsoft could be about to buy business social network Yammer in a deal worth $1 billion (£646 million), siliconrepublic.com reports.
Yammer was created by ex-PayPal chief operating officer in 2008 to be a micro-blogging site for business. It soon grew to become a fully-fledged enterprise social network, however and is now dubbed as the business equivalent of Facebook or Twitter by many.
The network, which is used by more than 20,000 companies worldwide, now counts eBay and Ford among its most high-profile users. Of the Fortune 500 companies, 80 per cent are thought to use the service for posting social media content.
Now, Microsoft could be about to swoop on the firm in a deal thought to be worth a billion dollars. No official word has been given yet, with the talks happening behind closed doors – though insiders have suggested that a deal could be done within the next 24 hours.
Bloomberg requested comments from Frank Shaw and Deanna McPherson, Microsoft and Yammer’s respective spokespeople, but both declined.
If the deal goes through it is expected to be a direct shot against Microsoft competitor Salesforce.com which recently bought Buddy Media for $745 million earlier this month. Oracle also undertook a similar deal, buying out social analysts Virtue and Collective Intellect earlier in the year, telegraph.co.uk reports.
