Jostle vs Yammer

2017. Microsoft retires Yammer as stand-alone service



Microsoft has made the decision to replace the standalone enterprise social network Yammer in favor of achieving more extensive integration with Office 365 services. In the previous year, Microsoft made Yammer the default option for all eligible Office 365 customers, resulting in the majority of Yammer users utilizing it as part of their Office 365 subscription. Going forward, new customers interested in using Yammer will be required to sign up for an eligible Office 365 plan. In an official notice regarding Yammer, Microsoft stated its objective of "strengthening Yammer integration" with various collaboration tools within Office 365, including SharePoint, OneNote, and Planner.


2016. Yammer now allows to create External groups



Microsoft has introduced a new feature called external groups in Yammer, facilitating collaboration with individuals outside your organization. This feature enables the inclusion of external team members in a Yammer group, simplifying teamwork for extended teams. With external groups, team members from outside your company, who have the appropriate permissions, can actively participate in projects and initiatives by accessing all the group's conversations and content. This capability enhances existing methods of collaboration with external individuals, such as external networks and external messaging. These options allow you to directly add individuals from outside your organization to a thread within your organization's Yammer network.


2014. Intranet platform Jostle raises $2M



Jostle, an intranet platform developer, secured $2 million in funding to expedite customer acquisition and further enhance product development. Jostle aims to revitalize intranet portal software by providing a fresh and intuitive user interface. The platform facilitates seamless publication of news stories, announcements, online discussions, and other pertinent information such as team directories. Offering a visually appealing experience, Jostle also incorporates a chat tool reminiscent of Yammer. Streamlining the onboarding process, Jostle integrates with Active Directory and other directory services. It supports popular single sign-on solutions and offers integration with Google Apps, including Google Docs, Gmail, Google Contacts, and Drive. Jostle offers flexible pricing options, starting at $6 per employee per month for small companies with up to 100 employees, and provides discounted rates for larger enterprises.


2014. Yammer adds conversations to OneDrive and SharePoint Online files


Today, Microsoft has introduced a new social feature for Office 365 called document conversations. This feature integrates the collaborative capabilities of Yammer directly into the Office apps. Here's how document conversations work: when you access a file in your browser from your cloud storage, you will see the file displayed on the left side, accompanied by a contextual Yammer conversation pane on the right. The Yammer pane can be expanded or collapsed according to your needs. In addition to joining conversations from the Yammer pane, you can also post messages, @mention your coworkers, and publish to a Yammer group, whether it's public or private. Since it's powered by Yammer, you can also view and participate in discussions beyond the scope of the document, using your mobile device, Microsoft Dynamics CRM, or any other application where a Yammer feed is embedded. Document conversations are being gradually rolled out to customers throughout the summer and will eventually be available across all sites within a tenant.


2013. Microsoft social networks: Yammer vs SharePoint Newsfeed



Last year, when Microsoft acquired Yammer (the service for building enterprise social networks), it already had own the own social network based on SharePoint (now it's called SharePoint Newsfeed). And that's OK, because Microsoft bought Yammer not for the engine, but for the customer base and the image of  social vendor. But now, it seems, Microsoft doesn't know what to do with two almost identical solutions. In June, Office 365 users got the opportunity to replace SharePoint Newsfeed to Yammer, and Microsoft continues to insist that Yammer - is its future and that soon Yammer will become the platform for all its business apps. But on the other hand SharePoint Newsfeed also continues to evolve. For example, today SharePoint Newsfeed app for Windows 8 has been launched. And it's very similar to Yammer app for Windows (guess where is what on the screenshots). ***


2013. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online adds iPad, Yammer support



Recently Terrasoft released mobile (iOS and Android) apps for its BPMonline CRM, and may be it remembered to Microsoft that the users of its CRM system also want to have a normal mobile access to customer data. Microsoft promised to release the mobile client for Microsoft Dynamics CRM back in May 2012, then at the end of the last year, then by February 2013. It's now March and Microsoft has really launched something. But it's not a full-fledged mobile app, but just a web interface for the iPad browser, which of course, can't work offline and has many limitations. When the normal mobile CRM app will appear? Microsoft promises "in the first half of this year." ***


2012. SharePoint 2013 will integrate Yammer, provide platform around the online version



At the  SharePoint Conference 2012 Microsoft revealed some new facts about the upcoming SharePoint 2013. But nothing specific has been announced - just few promises. The exact release date is also still unknown. Microsoft's corporate vice president of the Office Division Kris Koenigsbauer promises a launch during the first fiscal quarter of 2013, which falls between October 1, 2012 and December 31, 2012. Now about the Yammer. As expected, Microsoft will integrate this social intranet service (acquired in June) into SharePoint. The integration will be done via Yammer Web Parts and Yammer Open Graph. Got it? And soon (Microsoft says) SharePoint will become a system "powered by Yammer". Ok, let's look what is the real sense of integration between SharePoint and Yammer. ***


2012. Microsoft buys Yammer to protect SharePoint



Of course, it wasn't a secret that Yammer (the service that invented social intranet) - is a successful startup. But no one could imagine how successful it is. Microsoft is buying Yammer for as much as $1.2 billion. Most likely, it's too big price, but Microsoft has to overpay in order to protect its flagship product - SharePoint. We have already noted that after the rapid start, SharePoint has stopped in development. And lately two threats for SharePoint have appeared. The first threat is called "DropBox for business" - the new class of tools that sync files between computers and mobile devices. And the second threat - are these solutions for building enterprise social networks (Chatter, Yammer, Socialcast, Jive, etc.). For the first threat Microsoft has an answer - SkyDrive, but the social component in SharePoint it very weak. ***


2011. Hot trends by Yammer, Jive, NewsGator - video, social analytics, gamification



Leading social software vendors Yammer, Jive, NewsGator updated their products and showed us the latest trends, transforming the corporate social networks. Yammer has released the desktop AIR-client (Win and Mac), added the ability to post videos in microblog posts, reward colleagues with badges for completed tasks (we have already seen such gamification in Rypple and Producteev), and realized the integration with NetSuite, reminding the bunch Salesforce + Chatter. NewsGator in its new version of NewsGator Social Sites 2 focused on improving the Sharepoint video capabilities (recall, Newsgator Social Sites works on top of the Sharepoint). Like in Yammer, videos can now be easily inserted into microblog messages and besides they are added to the video gallery (something like YouTube for the Enterprise) where all the social capabilities can also be utilized - comments, rating, likes: ***


2011. Yammer reminded Benioff, where the Chatter came from



In recent days, the attention surrounding Salesforce Chatter has overshadowed all other news in the realm of Enterprise 2.0. Naturally, the developers behind Chatter's primary competitor, Yammer, seized the opportunity to garner their share of public attention and remind the head of Salesforce about the origins of this phenomenon. It all began three years ago when Yammer's team introduced the world to the pioneering concept of an enterprise microblogging tool during the Techcrunch50 startup contest. During that event, Marc Benioff, who now leads Salesforce, was one of the judges and expressed his enthusiasm for this innovative service. Fast forward three years, and Salesforce has now unveiled Chatter.com, which bears a striking resemblance to Yammer. However, the Yammer developers assert that over the course of those three years, they were diligently adding new features and building a far more advanced functionality and market presence. Undoubtedly, Yammer has made remarkable progress. Nevertheless, competing with the free offering of Chatter poses a significant challenge for them moving forward.