Parlano MindAlign group chat service acquired by Microsoft

Microsoft announced the acquisition of Parlano, maker of MindAlign, a group chat collaboration service. MindAlign makes it easy for groups of people to form around a topic, discuss it in real time chat (IM), and save the discussion for future reference. Stock market traders use MindAlign to share fast moving market information with their colleagues and quickly form trading strategies. ComputerWorld says;

The application is used by large financial services companies, including Deutsche Bank and UBS, so employees in major cities around the world such as Paris, London, Tokyo and New York can keep track of chat discussions on specific topics that may have occurred even when they were not in the office.

The Emerging Business Team has been working with Parlano for three years to establish a strong Microsoft partnership. First with introductions to the Microsoft Office product groups, and later by including Parlano in marketing campaigns, trade shows, product demos, and partner success stories.

Parlano is another good example of a partner relationship building over time and culminating in an aquisition. Many Microsoft acquisitions start out as partner relationships. Most of you know I worked at Groove Networks (collaboration) where we had a long partner relationship with Microsoft, that again resulted in a mutually benefical acquisition. Onfolio (web research) and Softricity (virtualization) are other examples from the Boston area.

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Comments

[mathew johnson]

when you add up all the msft in-house development and previous acquisitions like groove:

why doesn't msft already have this feature?

[Don Dodge]

Mathew, Good question. There are several answers.

First, acquisitions are made for lots of reasons; people, customers, market reach, and technology. Features are usually pretty far down the list.

Second, Parlano has lots more features than the one I highlighted. Groove has some similar features but within the context of a "invitation only" shared space. Parlano is more ad hoc and lightweight.