By Nathan Ingraham

It's been rumored for a while now, but the deal is now official: Microsoft (MSFT) just announced it is buying enterprise-focused social networking provider Yammer for $1.2 billion.  (Microsoft owns and publishes TechBiz, an MSN Money site.) Yammer will join Microsoft's Office division, with the team continuing to report to its current CEO David Sacks.

It sounds like the service will continue on in its current form, at least for the near-term -- Microsoft says that Yammer will continue to be developed as a stand-alone product, with the company looking to accelerate Yammer's adoption alongside complementary offerings. At the time of purchase, Yammer had over five million corporate users, with employees 85 percent of Fortune 500 companies using the service. Of course, this deal is subject to regulatory approval and other closing conditions, so we'll be looking to see if it hits any roadblocks along the way to passing — Microsoft didn't give a timeline for when it expects the deal to be complete.

This story was originally published on The Verge.

More from The Verge

• Nokia: we're doing 'more than enough' for Lumia 900 users, despite the lack of WP8 upgrade
• Nokia: we have no plans to license Scalado technology to competitors
  
• Apple v. Motorola: Judge Posner grills both sides on issue of product bans