What is behind the new Office 365 Network?

[Deleted]

What is behind the new community from a technical perspective?

Is this some custom tool/platform?

Is/will this be a service available as part of o365?

Any insights would be welcome.

[#2]

Hi Frank, we are using a third party, so this will not be a future Office 365 offering.

[#3]

It is from a company called Lithium.

I doubt that I will ever recommend their products to my clients.

[#4]

Yes, Dean, but Microsoft is on opposite position...

http://www.lithium.com/company/news-room/press-releases/2016/lithium-selected-as-key-enterprise-appl...

“We’re pleased to have Lithium as a strategic enterprise partner in AppSource,” said James Phillips, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft. “Together, Microsoft and Lithium are extending their integration even further to help businesses accelerate their digital transformation and drive real value. By working together, we provide businesses with a joint solution that isn’t available anywhere else in the market.”

[#5]

Hi Lana, You (Microsoft :)) abandoned yammer for a third-party tool...... we should know something about yammer? Because I'm just starting to implement a "community" tool inside my organization and I was in doubt between Yammer and SharePoint Online discussion board. Just a couple of days ago I decided to go with Yammer, but your last move has completely deranged my convinctions. Do you know (and can share) the motivations about this change? I'm really interested. Thanks in advance, Massimo

[#6]

Ok, probably this (http://www.lithium.com/company/news-room/press-releases/2016/lithium-selected-as-key-enterprise-appl...) can give some light. But the question about Yammer still remains open ... I'm little bit worried...

[#7]

Hi Massimo, 

The roadmap and investment in Yammer remains the same. We choose to move the community to a new platform because we wanted an un-authenticated viewing experience. With Yammer, members needed to sign up to view any of the content, and responses didn't show up in Bing/Google search results. 

For for information on why we made the move, here is a link to the official blog post. I also recommend taking a look at MVP @Naomi Moneypenny's blog on the topic here. 

The decision to move was made indepently of the announcement you referenced and has been in the works for some time as we realized we needed to reach more customers while continuing to provide a great community experience. 

In short, Yammer is NOT dead, it's alive and going strong- with plenty of devoted resources and team dedicated to bringing additional features in the coming months. You can always look to see what's been publicly announced on the Office Roadmap. 

[#8]

Thank you Lana,

This morning surfing this community I've find the Ruven's post and I was amending my discussion with the link, but.... here is your reply :)

All of this is reasonable and reassured me on Yammer.

Thanks a lot,

Massimo