Microsoft has splashed out a whopping $1.2 billion (£770m) to acquire Yammer, a four year-old start-up, which allows businesses to create their own social networks.
Yammer, founded in 2008, has 200,000 business clients, over 5 million corporate users and aims to assist collaboration, file-sharing and efficiency within the workplace.
Among the company's most high-profile clients are Ford, LG, Vodafone and eBay some of which are among 85 per cent of Fortune 500 companies that use Yammer's software.
Microsoft will keep the service going as a stand-alone entity, but will seek to bundle-in its own enterprise solutions, such as Skype, Microsoft Office, SkyDrive and Microsoft Dynamics.
Best-in-class
Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer says: "The acquisition of Yammer underscores our commitment to deliver technology that businesses need and people love.
"Yammer adds a best-in-class enterprise social networking service to Microsoft's growing portfolio of complementary cloud services."
The cash acquisition follows Microsoft's high-profile purchase of the Skype VoIP client for $8.5 billion (£5.43 billion), which was rubber-stamped in October last year.
Yammer CEO David Sacks added: "When we started Yammer four years ago, we set out to do something big. We had a vision for how social networking could change the way we work.
"Joining Microsoft will accelerate that vision and give us access to the technologies, expertise and resources we'll need to scale and innovate."
