Microsoft’s social software, including Yammer, is officially “magical” for the workplace. Microsoft have earned a Leader position in Gartner’s 2014 Magic Quadrant for Social Software in the Workplace report. Seventeen social software offerings were evaluated on ability to execute and completeness of vision.

Gartner’s 2014 Magic Quadrant for Social Software in the Workplace

Yammer has been crucial to Microsoft’s Enterprise Social vision and Gartner made sure to note that “Microsoft has shifted its social efforts to its online offerings Yammer and Office 365.” Looking forward, Gartner expects Yammer to develop even more as a “social layer” that connects all of the Office 365 tools, projecting upcoming growth as Microsoft exclusively focuses social development on Yammer.

The market for social software in the workplace includes vendors whose software products are used primarily to support people working together in teams, communities or networks. These products are not specialized for any particular business process or activity but can be tailored to support a variety of collaborative activities — that is, they are general purpose. They are used mainly within enterprises, primarily by employees, but also by external customers, suppliers and partners.

Microsoft is in the Leaders quadrant. Although SharePoint has been positioned in the past as a social product, Microsoft has shifted its social efforts to its online offerings Yammer and Office 365 (through closer incorporation of Yammer with the rest of Office 365). Although Yammer and SharePoint will remain distinct but integrated products, Microsoft will concentrate its future social enhancements exclusively on Yammer, while focusing SharePoint on related capabilities, including document management, portal capabilities, application development, business intelligence and Web content management.

Adam Bonefest said Microsoft is thrilled about our offerings for social software in the workplace and enabling customers everywhere to work like a network. It’s an honor to be named as a leader and we hope to continue innovating to find new ways to collaborate.

Buyers in this market are looking for virtual environments that can engage participants across a whole organization in creating, organizing and sharing information, as well as encourage them to find, connect and interact with each other.

Products in this market include both applications that deliver specific functionality “out of the box,” such as shared workspaces and communities, and platforms with capabilities that can be used as a basis for user-built contextual collaborative applications.

To be included in this Magic Quadrant, a vendor must offer a product that is packaged, marketed sold, and used to support teams, communities and networks mainly within an organization — that is, not packaged, marketed or used mainly for any other purpose.

Source: Yammer