Jive Acquires OffiSync

PALO ALTO, Calif., May 23, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Jive Software announced today that it has acquired OffiSync Corporation, the leading provider of social solutions to the Microsoft environment, including Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Office and Microsoft SharePoint. The acquisition will combine Jive's powerful Social Business platform with OffiSync's leading Microsoft integration products to deliver a breakthrough in how companies embrace social to transform the way they work.

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(Photo:  http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110523/SF06742-b)

"This is a game-changing acquisition for Jive," said Tony Zingale, Jive CEO. "With OffiSync, Jive has the opportunity to become the most widely adopted Social Business platform for over 600 million Microsoft users, giving them the ability to bring social to the way they work. We continue to drive the agenda for Social Business leadership and set the standard for the market."  

Over the past two decades, the workplace has become increasingly fast-paced and dynamic but enterprise productivity tools have not kept up. Most businesses today rely on legacy Microsoft applications to get work done. However, the manner in which users interact with these applications has not changed since the 90's, making collaboration very structured and difficult.

OffiSync's products make it possible for millions of Microsoft users to seamlessly integrate with Jive's leading Social Business platform directly from the Microsoft environment. With OffiSync, companies will be able to liberate and 'socialize' the content trapped in Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Office and Microsoft SharePoint. Jive will then seamlessly integrate it within the larger enterprise social graph in its platform, bringing the right information to the right person at the right time.

In the Jive Social Business platform, OffiSync will extend the following advantages:

• Shift from personal productivity to group collaboration. Sharing and updating documents using Microsoft applications is inefficient and confusing. Users can now leverage Microsoft applications to create content while also sharing, annotating and collaborating on the resulting documents using Jive's advanced social capabilities – all without leaving their familiar user interface.
• Liberate email. Email is a huge drain on productivity in the enterprise – people on average can spend up to seven hours a day in email. With OffiSync, instead of hitting "reply all" from the Microsoft Outlook interface, users can immediately promote important conversations directly into a social discussion on the Jive platform. Users can also view and reply to discussions on the Jive platform from their Microsoft Outlook inbox.
• Bring the social web to Microsoft Outlook. Knowledge workers have become accustomed to using the social web to gain a better understanding of their business contacts. By supplementing the contact information in Microsoft Outlook with profiles and activities from Jive as well as the most popular social networking sites, Jive and OffiSync bring the power of the social graph to the Microsoft Outlook user.

New Israel R&D Center

The OffiSync team, most of whom are currently based in Tel Aviv, Israel, will join Jive's engineering organization. Jive plans to build upon OffiSync's engineering presence in Tel Aviv to launch a new R&D center. The team in Israel will be lead by Roy Antebi, OffiSync co-founder and CTO, who will join Jive as VP of Engineering. 

Oudi Antebi, OffiSync co-founder and CEO, will join Jive as Senior Vice President of Enterprise Solutions.  In his new role, Oudi will drive Jive's vision and strategy for integration with Microsoft and the broader enterprise stack. Oudi will be based out of Jive's headquarters in Palo Alto, California.

"We are thrilled to join Jive," said Oudi Antebi.  "Jive is bringing innovation back to the enterprise, and we're excited to join forces to drive the Social Business revolution."

OffiSync is a long-standing partner of Jive. The two companies have collaborated and integrated their products for more than a year to deliver powerful social solutions to mutual customers. As a result of the partnership, the Jive integration with Microsoft Office is available immediately with Jive 4.5 and Jive 5. Integration with Microsoft Outlook will be released in Q3 2011. 

OffiSync is the third significant acquisition that Jive has completed in the last 18 months. Previous acquisitions include Proximal Labs, the leading 'big data' company in April 2011 and FiltrBox, an innovative social media monitoring company in January 2010.

Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed. For more information, visit http://www.jivesoftware.com/about/companies/offisync. 

About Social Business

Social Business is the new way to engage employees, customers and the social web. Jive's Social Business software combines the power of community software, collaboration software, social networking software, and social media monitoring offerings into an integrated platform. Just as social technologies have changed our personal lives, Social Business is changing how enterprises create competitive advantage.

About Jive – The New Way to Business

Jive is the largest and fastest growing independent Social Business Software company in the world. Jive is funded by Sequoia Capital and by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. For more information, visit www.jivesoftware.com.

About OffiSync

OffiSync was founded in 2010 by a team of Microsoft veterans. The company provides integration solutions that help deliver a complete social experience to Microsoft Office, enabling users to significantly improve the way they create, collaborate and share their documents. OffiSync is funded by Israel-based Vertex Venture Capital and by Seattle-based GTD Capital LLC. The company provides one of the top ten most popular applications in the Google Apps Marketplace. For more information, visit www.offisync.com.

SOURCE Jive Software