Yammer came to the market with one of the first microblogging services. In the span of their existence, a number of companies launched their own versions of an activity stream. But Yammer looks like they have the customers to prove they have a hold on their sector of the market.
At today’s Enterprise 2.0 conference, Yammer announced that 50,000 networks have been established with its service. We asked Yammer’s Steve Apfelberg what the size of these networks look like. He said they run from a few people to a few thousand, with an average of about 25 to 50 people per network. He declined to provide details about the number of paying clients but said they are showing revenues. But if you did the math, it could be extrapolated that Yammer has 1.25 to 2.5 million customers. How many of those are paying for the Yammer service?
You look around the Enterprise 2.0 conference and it becomes apparent that microblogging is the hot feature for companies on the exhibit floor.
A few of these companies started as wiki providers and added microblogging which helped diversify their products. It’s a strategy that works when larger clients want an all-in-one application. But Yammer says they get feedback from clients who want the Yammer service to go deeper. They prefer Yammer’s singular focus.
For Yammer, that means deeper active directory integration and fits into enterprise SaaS applications around sales and customer service use cases. That would make sense. Applications of all varieties are integrating into Salesforce.com. For Yammer, Sharepoint integration makes sense, too. By acting as a one point product, a company like Yammer can be flexible with where it integrates.
Here’s an interview with Apfelberg and a demo of the Yammer service:
