This month it was reported that Microsoft had agreed to buy one of these upstarts, Yammer, which is less than four years old but boasts more than 5m users in companies, for $1.2 billion. Neither side is commenting on the report.
In part, companies are setting up social networks because they have a generation of employees who are used to communicating this way. To them, not using social networks at the office (or, just as likely, on the road) would be as antiquated an idea as not using smartphones.
At the headquarters in London of Burberry, a British maker of fashionable clothes, 70% of the staff are under 30. “I grew up in a physical world, speaking English,” says Angela Ahrendts, Burberry’s chief executive. “They grew up in a digital world, speaking social.”
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