Group Chat Software Acquired

Parlano, a vendor of discussion software, has agreed to be acquired by Microsoft. Parlano’s MindAlign software hosts discussion boards that use instant messaging (IM), user presence, and sophisticated filtering to route time-critical information to users. The acquisition will expand the capabilities of Microsoft’s Communications Server and could promote maintenance agreement renewals on that product.

MindAlign supports a form of collaboration that Parlano calls persistent group chat. A set of continuously updated discussion boards (called channels) are organized by topic, and subscribers can receive real-time notifications of new messages and use filtering rules to eliminate messages that aren’t of interest. MindAlign integrates with Communications Server if it is available: for example, users can employ Communications Server buddy lists with MindAlign, see presence information of other users, and send and receive one-to-one instant messages within MindAlign. The product also supports connectivity to the MSN, AOL, and Yahoo public IM networks. MindAlign has major customers in the financial industry, including a 35,000 user deployment at UBS, where it has been used to distribute price and other market information to traders.