Some great news today -- we’ve announced that Microsoft will acquire Chicago-based Parlano, makers of leading group chat application, MindAlign, adding new capabilities to Office Communications Server and Office Communicator. We’re excited about the opportunity that this acquisition lends and believe Parlano’s group chat technology will help Microsoft deliver the industry’s most complete presence and instant messaging solution. Perhaps even more significant than their leading technology is their talented team who are expected to join us here in Redmond.
The Parlano acquisition enables Microsoft to offer a more complete UC product suite that includes group chat – sometimes called “persistent chat” – along with email, unified messaging, voice, conferencing, presence and instant messaging. One aspect that is very exciting to us is their novel approach to topic collaboration. Parlano provides the ability to structure a namespace for topic based collaboration, so users can find the topics of communication quickly and easily. Currently, the model supports text based communication but we foresee extending this model to encompass all forms of communication (i.e. audio, video, data, etc.). We’ve already been working closely with Parlano, and when the deal closes, Microsoft will further integrate their technologies with ours, to deliver a unified solution as part of future versions of Office Communications Server and Office Communicator. In the interim, customers will get group chat functionality with the Standard OCS client access license. Current MindAlign customers, many of whom use LCS 2005 today, will continue to receive product support and a simplified migration path to unified communications. We believe this is a natural transition - here’s how we’re already working with them.
The deal is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2007. Following the closing of the acquisition, members of the Parlano team are expected to join the unified communications group at Microsoft. I look forward to welcoming them all personally!
Stay tuned for more information in the coming months.
- Shaun Pierce
General Manager, Unified Communications Group