Blog

  • #HEYKEENAN
  • Account Management
  • Asset of The Future
  • Book Reviews/Quotes
  • Business Performance
  • Career Development
  • Cold Calling
  • CRM
  • Customer Service
  • Ebooks
  • Economy
  • Enterprise 2.0
  • Entrepreneur
  • Events
  • Executive Series
  • Funny
  • Gap Selling Sales Book
  • Guest Posts
  • Hiring/Firing
  • How To Sell Better
  • Interviews/Podcasts
  • Job Seekers
  • KEENAN LIVE
  • Leadership
  • LinkedIn Videos
  • Lists
  • Marketing
  • Not Taught
  • Personal Brand
  • Personal Development
  • Pipeline
  • Politics
  • Products
  • Prospecting
  • Quota
  • Quotes
  • Random
  • Sales Advice
  • Sales Coaching
  • Sales Process
  • Sales Speaker
  • Sales Team Development
  • Sales Tips
  • Services
  • Skiing
  • Social Selling/Social Media/Content Marketing
  • Socially Booked
  • Spazz Out
  • Strategy
  • Success Saturdays
  • Sunday Morning Blog
  • Taught Leaders
  • Technology and Products
  • The Chase
  • The Word
  • To the Community
  • Uncategorized
  • Videos
  • What I Think!
  • What Would You Do Wednesdays?
  • WITCE Wednesdays
  • Workplace Culture

    • Is Yammer Feeling the Squeeze?

    February 2, 2011

    Yammer just put out this very funny video, poking fun at Salesforce.com for “copying” their idea. Check it out, it’s only a minute long.

    It’s clear Salesforce’s product Chatter is going after Yammer and other social media for the enterprise companies. This video is a bold, confident move to bash a competitor and remind everyone that Yammer is the choice for enterprise collaboration or social media.

    After watching the video, I couldn’t help but wonder if Yammer isn’t confident, but rather the opposite. I’m starting wonder if Yammer is feeling the pressure of Salesforce.com. I can’t help but think Yammer is getting nervous. If I were Yammer, I would be. Saleforce.com is the dominant CRM platform out there. I don’t know their penetration numbers, but they have made a successful living by penetrating small and medium size businesses. They are also making inroads to larger enterprises as well. They exist in so many accounts they could make it difficult for Yammer. If Yammer as an opportunity with an account that is already using Salesforce.com, convincing them not to use SF.com’s integrated product Chatter for Yammer instead is a tall order.

    Yammer has a cool product. But, so does Socialcast, Present.ly, Socialtext, NewsGator, Chatter and all of Yammer’s other competitors. It is not hard to copy what Yammer is doing. The barrier to entry isn’t that high. Yammer was first and did a good job setting the market, but the ability for others to join the party is rather easy. This is especially true for existing enterprise software companies.

    Yammer is puffing their chest and standing tall, as they should. But, I think this is a sign they are getting nervous. Yammer is playing in a space with a product that could very easily be dominated by existing players. IBM, Cisco, Avaya, and Microsoft can all offer Yammer like products, embedding them into their existing communication tools. I’m know some already have. I know Sharepoint 2010 has enterprise microblogging out of the box. All this makes Yammers climb more difficult. I love the video. I love Yammer’s bravado. I love their confidence. Unfortunately, I think it’s all masking the fear that Yammer is feeling the squeeze.

    Related articles
    Enhanced by Zemanta
    Keenan