Tom Kelly, CEO of Moxie Software, said the deal "validates the critical nature of social connectivity as an enterprise capability" and argued that customers who want a "full-featured enterprise collaboration software" can get it today from his company.

Tim Young, vice president of social enterprise at VMware, said the deal validates VMware's decision to buy Socialcast last year. "Today's news is yet another proof point that social is becoming a critical and core component in the way that employees work," he said.

Chris McNulty, of Quest Software's SharePoint business, wondered when customers can expect to see Yammer fully integrated into SharePoint.

"It would take a Herculean effort to get Yammer integrated into the next SharePoint release, so as a backup option it's likely there will be an improved integration pack at the time of release. Bottom line; the benefits and implementation timeline of SharePoint plus Yammer must be made crystal clear to SharePoint customers," he said, adding that the wait could conceivably extend several years out.

The IDG News Service