Yammer Announces Message Translation to Ignite Multilingual Collaboration

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 28, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Yammer, Inc., a best-in-class Enterprise Social Network and part of the Microsoft Office Division, today announced plans to add message translation capabilities, which will allow users to instantly translate Yammer conversations into their native languages.

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"Removing language as a barrier to cross-company collaboration can be a competitive game changer for multinational organizations. It opens a world of possibilities," said Adam Pisoni , Yammer co-founder and general manager of Engineering, Microsoft Office Division. "This is another example of Yammer's accelerated innovation following the Microsoft acquisition — we're able to use Microsoft Translator to quickly deliver additional value to customers."

Enterprise Social Networking brings people and teams together across organizational silos and geographies to drive better communication, collaboration and knowledge sharing. Currently, 65 percent of Yammer's 7 million users are located outside the United States. Yammer anticipates that message translation will drive greater international adoption and cross-cultural collaboration within and between organizations.

How It Works
Whenever a Yammer conversation includes a language different from the user's default language setting, a translate button will appear below the initial post. Clicking translate will instantly convert the entire conversation, including related responses, into the user's default language. Clicking "show original text" will revert the conversation back to the initial language(s).

Microsoft Translator supports 39 languages. This feature is planned for availability in late spring 2013 for Yammer Enterprise customers.

About Yammer
Yammer (www.yammer.com) is a best-in-class Enterprise Social Network used by more than 200,000 organizations worldwide — including 85 percent of the Fortune 500 — to foster team collaboration, empower employees, drive business agility and promote organizational connectedness. Yammer's freemium business model lets customers see the value of Yammer before upgrading to the premium offering. Founded in 2008, Yammer is now part of the Microsoft Office Division.

About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT") is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

SOURCE Microsoft Corp.

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