Mediaboss Marketing

By Umang Patodia - June 18, 2012 | Tickers: FB, GOOG, MSFT, ORCL | 0 Comments

Umang is a member of The Motley Fool Blog Network -- entries represent the personal opinions of our bloggers and are not formally edited.

First Skype and now Yammer. These are trends showing that theMicrosoft Corp(NASDAQ: MSFT)is looking to giveGoogle Inc(NASDAQ: GOOG)a tough fight on the social networking arena. Just after the rumor(reliable sources) ofthe Yammer acquisitionfor a handsome amount of 1.2 billion dollars, we seeMicrosoftstock rising by2.49% in the last 3 daysandGooglestock going down by2.75% in the last 5 days.

Is it a mere coincidence? Isn't it too early to predict?

First withOrkut then Google+, Googlehas been trying their best to create a dominance in the social networking area with little or no success.The companyhas been always dominant in the search engine (almost creating a monopoly) but by far has not had tasted the success of social networking (apart from the early success of Orkut).

Similarly, Salesforce.com just recently obtained Buddy Media Inc. for 745 million dollars, and Oracle Corp(NASDAQ: ORCL)obtained Collective Intent and Virtue Inc., giving both companies social media-based software.

The leader of the market in social networking is of course Facebook Inc (NASDAQ: FB)whileInternational Business Machines Corporation'sIBM connection controls the enterprise social networking realm. But Yammer has had a great impact already. This can be validated by the controversial statement made byMoskovitz (co founder of Facebook) whotold theNew York Times, Work is not a social network, with serendipitous communications and photo collections. Work is about managing tasks, and responding to things quickly." This was clearly anattempt to slam Yammer.

The acquisition of this social networking site confirms the growing trend among businesses to add social media tools for their employees.These are not the only reason why this acquisition is heading towards a positive direction from the perspective of both the companies. The other reasons why it looks to be a profitable venture are:

1.Technical Acquisition: Talking in laymans terminology, Yammer is possibly the best fit for Microsofts amazing office tools (Office etc.). Imagine the effect of networking on these tools. These products are already so well defined and on top of it the ability to integrate the rest of the world could act as a boon for many techies.

2. Microsofts entry pass to the Social world: Microsoft had two choices, either to set up its social network on its own or acquire a networking company. Well, the reason I would say the second is a better choice is simply because of the lack of expertise in this domain. On top of it if you have the required resources to expand in the domain, then simply put your feet on the pedestal.

Here is the original post:
Who Will Dominate Enterprise Social Networking?