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Microsoft's redesigned Office icons reflect its move to the cloud
Microsoft's Office icons on Windows and the web have been conservative, to put it mildly. They've been functional things you click while you scramble to finish a business spreadsheet or school report. The company would like you to sit up and take notice this time around, though. It just unveiled redesigned Office icons that will reach apps and the web in the "coming months," and they're decidedly more interesting. To Microsoft, they're a reflection of how much Office has changed in the five years since the icons last received a makeover.
Microsoft's Teams is its Slack competitor for Office 365
Because Yammer isn't quite enough to take on Slack, Microsoft is launching yet another business chat app: Teams. It'll be part of the Office 365 suite, and from the video below, it looks like it'll differentiate itself from Slack and Hipchat with threaded chats, Office document collaboration and multi-person video chat. Basically, the company is trying to bring all of productivity strengths together in a single app.
Facebook at Work officially launches as 'Workplace'
Right on schedule, Facebook's private social networks for companies officially launched today. After several years in private beta, the company's Slack and Yammer competitor is now known simply as "Workplace," and is available to companies, non-profits and educational institutions of any size.
Facebook's Slack competitor may be coming next month
With nearly two years of development and 450 companies already on board, Facebook at Work is gearing up for a commercial launch of its in-house social network and communications platform for companies. According to a report from The Information, the service will launch next month and the social network will charge a set monthly fee per active user.
Microsoft letting users choose Yammer as default social network in Office 365
Since enterprise-level social networking isn't really our bag, we haven't been paying that much attention to Yammer after Microsoft's paid $1.2 billion to buy it. Still, as part of Redmond's project to merge Twitter-for-business with Office 365, organizations can now make Yammer the primary sharing tool for their users. Unfortunately, we suspect some heavy-handed sysadmin will prevent you from sending those amusing LOLCat pictures your nephew emailed you to the folks in sector G.
Google offering Google+ for businesses, free until the end of 2013
Google is bringing the enterprise-friendly elements of its Apps platform into Google+ in order to help businesses collaborate on projects online. The company's been using the service internally, but feels it's time to launch, in Google tradition, a "full preview" with a free and open beta that'll run until the end of 2013. The feature set includes private sharing, admin tools and, most impressively, hangouts directly integrated into Calendar, Gmail and Docs -- letting you video chat with multiple colleagues while you draft that project proposal, or resignation letter. Apps chief Clay Bavor hasn't mentioned how much the service will cost when the preview period finishes, but we'd be surprised if it was much more than what it currently charges if it's trying to snare the Yammer and Salesforce crowds.
Microsoft completes Yammer buy-out, social network joins the Office
Social network Yammer is now a fully-fledged part of the Redmond family. It'll sidle up along the company's Office division, with the team already working on the adoption of Yammer's standalone service within Microsoft. Check the full (but short) announcement on the company's official blog -- the link's below.
Microsoft buying Yammer to beef up enterprise social networking efforts
So, what exactly is a Yammer? Well, it's a simple social network designed not to connect you with family or college roommates, but with your coworkers. The platform has had some success, but its most high profile moment may be today's announcement that Microsoft had purchased the company. Rumors had been circulating for about a week, but now Redmond has made it official and issued a press release announcing its plan to purchase the startup for $1.2 billion in cash. Yammer will continue to live on as a stand alone service, which should make its 5 million users and countless Fortune 500 customers happy. But Microsoft will certainly be looking to fold its features into its own suite of enterprise offerings, like SharePoint and Office 365. For more info check out the PR after the break.
