The companies expect to close the transaction during the first quarter of 2003, after which time Mountain View, California-based PlaceWare will become part of Microsoft's Information Worker division. One of Microsoft's most profitable divisions, Information Worker, brought in US$2.29 billion during the December quarter. The group includes Microsoft Office software.
In conjunction with the announcement, Microsoft also created a new business unit, Real Time Collaboration, as part of the Information Worker division. Anoop Gupta will head the new division and report to Jeff Raikes, Microsoft's group vice president of productivity and business services.
Gupta worked in Microsoft Research for five years and more recently served as a technical advisor to company Chairman Bill Gates.
The acquisition comes as Microsoft beefs up support for online collaboration services. For example, the Redmond, Washington-based company is testing a new version of SharePoint Team Services as part of the Office 11 beta. SharePoint Team Services provides Office users a common work space for sharing information and documents.
Microsoft also is closely aligned with Groove Networks, which provides peer-to-peer networking collaboration software. In July, Groove announced that its software would support SharePoint Team Services.
Microsoft and PlaceWare did not discuss terms of the acquisition.
