When there are more than a billion people already using your products, it doesn’t seem like a natural time for a rebrand. But Microsoft is apparently sick of being portrayed as an old fuddy duddy to Apple’s hip, young counterpart. 

After all, “the consensus among analysts seems to be that Microsoft is a company in transition, experiencing growing pains and pockets of great promise as it moves from dominance in a world centered on Windows and PCs to becoming a company that delivers services and devices,” the Seattle Times reports.

That transition means some big changes for the way the company presents itself. According to Windows Phone design studio general manager Albert Shum and Wolff Olins creative director Todd Simmons, Microsoft is planning to rebrand Bing, Skype, Yammer and Xbox, Gizbot reports.

After all, Microsoft refreshed the visual identity for Windows and Office last year, and the company in the midst of a big plan to align all of its products across design and marketing.Continue reading...

A recent McKinsey Global Institute study, “The social economy: Unlocking value and productivity through social technologies,” concludes that social technologies could contribute $900 billion to $1.3 trillion in annual value to business.

"Two-thirds of this potential value lies in improving collaboration and communication within and across enterprises," with improved consumer focus and better-functioning teams as additional benefits. 

The current crop of social media acquisitions, including Microsoft's acquisition of Yammer and Salesforce.com's purchase of Radian6, underscore large companies’ increasingly expensive quest for internalized productivity tools to better help them manage customers. 

The most effective social technologies include wikis, instant messaging, content searches and user forums, and apply to several levels of employees from managers to sales representatives to engineers. The largest impediment to overcome, both organizationally and individually, is the embrace of a nonhierarchical ethos where acumen and information are shared rather than hoarded. Continue reading...

Toyota tops Interbrand's 2012 Best Global Green Brands report.

News Corp. considers splitting company in two, spinning off publishing assets, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Microsoft acquires Yammer for $1.2 billion to take on Oracle and Salesforce with new cloud-based services.

Nissan rises on fast recovery from disasters and plans $1B China auto plant as CEO Ghosn remains Japan's highest paid exec and automaker turns to Facebook to launch five new models.

Facebook names first woman to board — COO Sheryl Sandberg — and pulls so-called stalker app while creating uproar by changing all users' email addresses to facebook.com.

Google I/O news on Wednesday expected to reveal Google and Sony taking on cable and satellite operators with voice-controlled YouTube TV box, as Google prepares to battle Apple with discount tablet.Continue reading...

In this video EPK, Microsoft and Yammer executives explain how the $1.2 billion cash acquisition of the start-up plays an important part in the company's migration to cloud-based computing.

In this video EPK, Microsoft and Yammer executives explain how the $1.2 billion cash acquisition of the start-up plays an important part in the company's migration to cloud-based computing.