Yammer: Now with native integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM
Microsoft bought enterprise social-networking vendor Yammer for $1.2 billion in June. And on October 29, Yammer officials announced the first of the deeper integration pieces between the two companies.
At its YamJam conference today, Yammer and Microsoft execs announced there will be native integration between Yammer and Microsoft Dynamics CRM. It's not an unexpected announcement, given a Yammer-Microsoft CRM plug-in already existed.
But the coming integration goes a step further, Yammer officials said. The new integration will "leverage the power of the enterprise graph" by allowing Dynamics CRM customers to embed Yammer feeds, and its Follow and Like buttons, into specific CRM records. Once someone takes action on a record, a page will be automatically created in Yammer where employees can discuss, follow and collaborate on that record.
I've asked when this integration will be available to customers. No word back yet.
Update: A microsoft spokesperson said "Yammer will be native to Dynamics CRM and the other integrations are available in the Yammer App Directory, which is accessible to users after they sign in to Yammer and is available starting today."
Other Yammer-Microsoft integration points -- specifically around SharePoint -- are expected to be unveiled at the Microsoft SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas in mid-November.
CEO Steve Ballmer and Yammer CEO David Sacks have said Microsoft plans to integrate Yammer's technology with Office, Office 365, Dynamics (CRM) and Skype. Microsoft will, however, continue to also offer Yammer as a standalone cloud service, too.
There are more than 5 million registered corporate Yammer users. Microsoft officials have said the company will largely follow the Skype model with Yammer, in terms of leaving the company in its present locale (San Francisco in Yammer's case). But Sacks doesn't run a separate business unit the way Tony Bates does with Skype. Sacks and his team are part of Microsoft's Office division.