2013/2/20 - Yammer Accelerates Momentum Following Microsoft Acquisition

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2012 Highlights

• Full-year 2012 sales nearly tripled year-over-year (ended Jan. 31, 2013)
• Fourth-quarter sales quadrupled year-over-year (ended Jan. 31, 2013)
• Number of paying customers increased 165 percent in 2012
• Surpassed 7 million registered users

"Yammer experienced banner growth in 2012 and grew particularly fast in the fourth quarter. Our momentum is definitely accelerating following the Microsoft acquisition," said David Sacks, Yammer co-founder and corporate vice president, Microsoft Office Division. "The power of the freemium model and the validation that Microsoft brings to Enterprise Social Networking is helping drive mainstream adoption among leading organizations. Enterprise Social Networking is becoming the cornerstone of workplace collaboration for its ability to empower people and drive employee engagement, team collaboration and business agility."

Record Customer Adoption
Yammer added a record 290 new paying customers in the fourth quarter, including DWF LLP, GlaxoSmithKline, Grundfos, McGladrey LLP, Reckitt Benckiser, Rio Tinto, SABMiller, T.G.I. Friday's, Trek Bicycle Corp. and Woolworths Ltd. New customers spanned industries from financial and professional services to healthcare and pharmaceutical, including one of the largest retailers in the world and one of the largest natural gas and electric utilities companies in the United States.

Yammer Paid Customers Across Industries Include the Following:

• Nine of the largest retailers in the world
• Six of the largest food and beverage companies in the world
• Five of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world
• Four of the largest telecommunications companies in the world
• Five of the largest oil and gas companies in the world
• Four of the largest manufacturing companies in the world
• Four of the largest financial services companies in the world

(Findings based on customer placement within the Forbes Global 2000)

"The Yammer experience is clearly resonating with our global workforce, and it is overtaking some of our prior investments for internal collaboration and information management," said Scott Singer, head of Global Business Services and chief information officer of Rio Tinto, a leading international mining group headquartered in the U.K.

Rapid Product Innovation
"Our pace of development and innovation is picking up speed as part of the Microsoft Office Division," said Adam Pisoni, Yammer co-founder and general manager of Engineering, Microsoft Office Division. "The development teams are coming together quickly, and we are leveraging existing technologies such as SkyDrive Pro and Office Web Apps to swiftly deliver greater value for customers."

As previewed at the recent SharePoint Conference, Yammer is implementing SkyDrive Pro for file storage. In addition, Yammer is enhancing the ability to preview and edit files directly within Yammer feeds using Office Web Apps. The combination of these capabilities will dramatically enhance a user's ability to create, collaborate, share and discover content within Yammer. These enhancements are planned for availability in summer 2013.

About Yammer
Yammer (www.yammer.com) is a best-in-class Enterprise Social Network used by more than 200,000 organizations worldwide — including 85 percent of the Fortune 500 — to foster team collaboration, empower employees, drive business agility and promote organizational connectedness. Yammer's freemium business model lets customers see the value of Yammer before upgrading to the premium offering. Founded in 2008, Yammer is now part of the Microsoft Office Division.

About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT") is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

SOURCE Microsoft Corp.