微軟收購Yammer背后的玄機

????微軟（Microsoft）正在以12億美元的價格收購企業社交網絡工具Yammer。Yammer相當于一個企業版的Facebook。這次收購表明，全球最大的一批企業在使用和選擇軟件的方式上出現了重大變化。

????《華爾街日報》（Wall Street Journal ）認為，微軟收購Yammer表明，“微軟可能想借此彌補它那無所不在的Office辦公軟件存在的缺點。”實際情況遠不止如此。一位權威性不亞于風投大師彼得?萊文的人士指出，不管是支付工資、監控顧客信息還是制作電子表格，用于各種用途的企業軟件正在經歷一次前所未有的復興和“充分的復蘇”。【彼得?萊文是風險投資巨頭公司安德森-霍洛維茨（Andreessen Horowitz）的普通合伙人，該公司曾經投資過Facebook、Twitter和社交游戲網站Zynga。】

????他這番話的證據何在？從上個月以來，包括甲骨文（Oracle）、Salesforce和微軟等科技巨頭已經花了22.5億美元用于收購Vitrue、Buddy Media和Yammer等新興社交軟件公司。這股收購熱潮標志著企業軟件正在迅速演變，而科技巨頭也不遺余力地想要跟上這股潮流。微軟、甲骨文和SAP等公司開發的那種授權式的商業軟件就算還沒有完全過時，至少已經開始走下坡路。眼下和未來時興的將是那些基于云計算、簡明直觀的“軟件即服務”式的應用程序，而且還要帶有社交組件。這些應用的構建者是一批顛覆性的年輕公司，包括網絡存儲應用Dropbox、在線協作應用Asana以及上周剛被微軟收購的Yammer。

????當然，一切都是錢鬧的。據研究機構高德納公司（Gartner）的數據，全球企業軟件市場的估值約在2,800億美元，差不多等于希臘全年的GDP。

????一場企業IT革命已經悄然拉開大幕。這場革命具有以下5個特點：

????1）企業軟件的人性化：一旦從小用慣了Facebook這些直觀的多媒體網絡的一代人成長起來、進入職場，會發生哪些事呢？要知道，他們所習慣的那些軟件都無需培訓，馬上就能上手。突然之間，傳統的企業軟件，比如Excel上那些變態的電子表格相比之下顯得那樣原始。今天的企業用戶喜歡的是好看又好用的用戶界面。包括Dropbox、Yammer和Box在內的新一代商業軟件越來越朝著這個方向發展，同時也能提供企業一向要求的安全性和合法性特征。

????Microsoft is snatching up business social networking tool Yammer - a.k.a Facebook for the workplace - for $1.2 billion. This acquisition hints at a major shift in the way the planet's largest companies use and choose software.

????The Wall Street Journal notes that the Yammer purchase shows "Microsoft may be trying to plug holes in its ubiquitous Office software." It goes much farther than that. Enterprise software - the tools used by companies to do everything from process payroll to monitor customer leads and make spreadsheets - is right now in the midst of an unprecedented renaissance and "full-blown reawakening," according to no less an authority than Peter Levine, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, the venture capital gurus that have invested in Facebook (FB), Twitter and Zynga (ZNGA).

????The proof? In just the last month, enterprise giants including Oracle (ORCL), Salesforce (CRM) and now Microsoft (MSFT) have shelled out $2.25 billion forsocial business upstarts like Vitrue, Buddy Media and Yammer. The spending spree reflects the fact that enterprise software is swiftly evolving and tech's titans are fighting to keep up.

????Going - if not quite gone - are the clunky, licensed business products once churned out by the likes of Microsoft, Oracle and SAP. Up and coming are cloud-based, intuitive, software-as-a-service applications with social components created by a host of young, disruptive companies ranging from Dropbox to Asana and - until last week - Yammer.

????And at stake is one whopper of a payday. According to research firm Gartner, the global enterprise software market is valued at $280 billion, roughly equivalent to Greece's annual GDP.

????A silent revolution in enterprise IT is already underway. Here are five hallmarks of the new wave:

????1) The consumerization of enterprise software: What happens when a generation raised using intuitive, multimedia networks like Facebook - tools that are accessible from day one, no training required - enters the workplace? Suddenly, traditional enterprise software, like those monster spreadsheets on Excel, seems positively archaic by comparison. Today's business users expect a sexy, easy-to-use user interface, and the next generation of business software - think Dropbox, Yammer, Box - increasingly obliges, while also offering the security and compliance features traditionally demanded by enterprises.