Microsoft said it will acquire Parlano, a Chicago-based company which produces MindAlign, an application for enterprise group chat. MindAlign is ideal for business environments, because it allows several employees to carry on topic-specific, multiparty instant messaging discussions that persist over time. Parlano’s software is used by companies in a variety of industries, including financial services, call centers and technology, to conduct ongoing business-critical conversations.

“Parlano has been successful in meeting the rigorous communications needs of companies in financial services and other vertical markets,” said Gurdeep Singh Pall, corporate vice president of the Unified Communications Group at Microsoft. “Parlano’s expertise and technology, added to Microsoft’s unified communications offering, will deliver customers the most complete presence, instant messaging and group chat solution on the market.”

The financial terms of the acquisition weren’t disclosed, but Microsoft said that after the deal closes, it will add the group chat functionality to Office Communications Server and Office Communicator.

Also the Microsoft Office maker plans to offer group chat as part of the standard client access license for Office Communications Server 2007 Software Assurance customers.

One of the reasons behind Microsoft’s decision to buy Parlano is the long list of clients that are already using MindAlign, such as Deutsche Bank, Putnam Investments and UBS.

MindAlign already runs on Office Communications Server 2007 and Office Live Communications Server 2005. “Parlano has helped many organizations enhance operations, improve service delivery and increase sales through more effective ongoing group communication, collaboration and knowledge sharing,” said Nick Fera, chairman and chief executive officer of Parlano. Parlano was founded in 2000 and currently has 50 employees.

Last week IBM announced it has acquired WebDialogs, Inc., a Billerica, Massachusetts-based, privately held provider of Web conferencing and communications services, with more than 500,000 users worldwide.