Microsoft-Owned Yammer Hit With Small Round Of Layoffs

We’re hearing from multiple sources that there was a small round of layoffs today at enterprise collaboration company Yammer. The number of people let go is around 20 staffers, according to our sources. UPDATE: Yammer has confirmed the layoffs.

As you may know, Yammer was acquired by Microsoft in July 2012 for $1.2 billion in cash. The Yammer team was folded into its Microsoft Office division and continue to report to the company’s CEO and co-founder David Sacks. At the time of the acquisition, Yammer had around 300 employees but this number was expected to almost double by 2013.

Here is Yammer’s statement on the reductions:

We can confirm that Yammer eliminated a small number of sales and marketing positions. Each of our businesses continually assesses and re-allocates resources to align with their priorities. Yammer has continued to grow rapidly since becoming part of the Microsoft Office Division.

So it sounds like the layoffs weren’t due to financial performance but were more about eliminating redundancies and low performing individuals in the organization.