SharePoint lets users annotate files and pages by adding notes to them. However, notes can’t be replied to, can’t be addressed to specific people, and are easily missed. This is not microblogging. Yammer supplements SharePoint’s wiki-like behavior with true microblogging capabilities.

SharePoint’s strength lies in content management for intranet sites. It is not designed to be a communication platform. By contrast, Yammer is built around delivery of messages in real-time, so users can reply to each other and have conversations in a single feed.

SharePoint silos content and users into separate sites, topics, and teams. As a result, employees rarely cross these boundaries to collaborate with each other. Yammer, on the other hand, makes people and content socially discoverable, and enables knowledge to flow across teams – fulfilling the promise of enterprise social networking.

Yammer content is accessible from anywhere, on any mobile device. SharePoint isn’t. With Yammer, you can stay informed and make decisions on the go.

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Companies that use SharePoint + Yammer get microblogging functionality and enhanced social features as soon as June 2010.

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Companies that wait for SharePoint to offer equivalent functionality will be waiting until at least SharePoint 2013 (if it appears at all).

Yammer microblogging webpart for SharePoint 2010 released.

SharePoint 2010 released. Companies wait for Service Pack 1.

SharePoint 2010 Service Pack 1 released. Companies begin moving to SharePoint 2010, realize it doesn’t have microblogging.

SharePoint 2013 released (with microblogging?)

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Yammer brings a lot of missing functionality to SharePoint 2010 for a comparatively small incremental investment. Typical cost of deployment for a large organization:
– SharePoint: >$7,000 initial fixed cost + ~$494 per user. Typically totals several $million before maintenance and support costs. Yammer: < 5% of your SharePoint costs.

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Yammer