Microsoft acquired enterprise group chat provider Parlano today for undisclosed terms. Parlano's MindAlign product has made significant headway in financial services and I first encountered them deployed at Dresdner Klienwort. Socialtext offers pre-integration with MindAlign, which will be incorporated into Microsoft Office Communications Server and Microsoft Office Communicator, Microsoft’s server and client software for presence, instant messaging, conferencing and VoIP. We see this news as a further complement to our SocialPoint offering which integrates Socialtext best-of-breed wiki with Sharepoint.
Congratulations to CEO Nick Fera and the good folks at Parlano. Don Dodge shares how his team at Microsoft brought them in. There are interesting competitive implications for this acquisition for Cisco, among others. Early adopters of such technology will probably equate it with industrial strength IRC, and get how vital this kind of tool can be collaboration.
