Intel Unite vs. Microsoft Yammer

It's a fantastic tool [Intel Unite] in meeting rooms where staff frequently change and/or bring their own devices to connect. No more wires or dongles, just a wifi connection needed and that's it to stream to the screen. It'll even display on the screen exactly what end-users need to do to connect, which makes getting connected for less tech-savvy users very easy. If you have an IT or AV department that isn't great, this probably isn't a great option to roll-your-own, but they do sell dedicated Intel Unite PCs with everything pre-done on them.

Incentivized

Yammer is great when you have a company culture that encourages friendly collaboration and communication. It can be a great supplement (but certainly not a substitute) for bonding and sharing ideas and thoughts. Certain channels can be really successful, too, like a channel where people can post dog pictures or something fun like that!

Incentivized

• No dongles needed any longer for connections, it's all through a local wifi (or the corporate one depending on how you set it up). You can stream from mobile devices too.
• Simple set-up - laptops connect very easily, mobiles connect quickly with an app.

Incentivized

• Providing a platform for social news in the company where "bottom up" topics can percolate freely across department
• Social networking across the company where folks can divide their work into topics instead of teams
• Basic collaboration within a group including document sharing with ability to pin documents to a team

Incentivized

• The initial setup was a bit of a pain - when we started they required specific hardware to make it work (Intel vPro), which wasn't on the PC used for presentations at the time and we had to change hardware out.
• Software versions are difficult to find on the Intel website - it's a bit of a jumble and not clear as to what needs to be installed and where.

Incentivized

• Although the social enterprise network works very well, there is room for some slight improvement - such as the ability to attract users. By being part of the Microsoft Office Suite, it is offered as an "add-on" and many overlook it and see it as unnecessary at first. It would be smart for Microsoft to sell it as its own product so it could gather more popularity as a "social network".
• Giving an option to filter results could be better as well as giving an option to turn off the "recent activity" bar on the home page.

Incentivized

Microsoft is dedicated to continual improvement on Yammer. They realize the value that Yammer brings to the table with their clients. In the short time that we have had Yammer implemented, we are just now beginning to see the strong impact it has on becoming more effective and efficient around collaboration.

Overall easy to use and intuitive, although limited in the possibility to personalize layout and look & feel of a site. Some functionalities are not easy to use, like document editing, but some others are quick and effective (posts and tagging above all). Performance and responsiveness of the Yammer site is typically acceptable, in my experience.

Very available

It's a simple product but it does provide value.

We have never had to use the support for Yammer. The tool works well and we have not come across any bugs. User Interface is simple and easy to use, similar to other forum type products, thereby removing the need for any extensive training. Team members are invited in and immediately are able to start using the tool.

Incentivized

The training that Microsoft provides is very generic training for Yammer. I like the fact the training is short and easy to understand

We organically implemented the product

GoToMeeting and Webex both require either a connection to the display screen or a PC mounted to the display to connect through. [Intel] Unite handles both of those areas, though it doesn't function as a remote meeting platform to bring people together from different locations. It's just for local display.

Incentivized

Our team briefly used Salesforce.com's Chatter product before switching over to Yammer in 2012. While Chatter is essentially the same product as Yammer, it left much to be desired. Chatter's design was (and remains) clunky and difficult to navigate. Yammer is a simple, easy-to-use product that offers similar functionality as Salesforce's Chatter.

Incentivized

• For us, this has been a creature comfort primarily as it has allowed us to simplify connections in meeting rooms for infrequent staff.
• We had a lot of theft of dongles from meeting rooms due to presenters snatching them when they packed up for the day. [Intel] Unite let us allow presenters to connect wirelessly to the display screens, and no more dongles to hand out in the first place!

Incentivized

• My company is pleased with the positive impact Yammer has created departmentally and on an individual basis with work flow efficiency.
• Adversely, most old and new employees are more familiar with SharePoint, causing the company to pay for training for all current and incoming employees.
• As Yammer becomes more widely used, the need for training may diminish, which is where we will see our return on investment, as the product clearly provides a more effective form of file sharing and communication between employees and their department.

Incentivized