Golden Gate Capital and Oak Investment Partners Acquire Enterprise Real-Time Messaging and Collaboration Assets From divine, inc

CHICAGO, IL, June 5, 2003 -- Golden Gate Capital, in partnership with Oak Investment Partners, announced today that it has completed the acquisition of the Collaboration assets from divine, inc. The newly formed private company will be renamed Parlano Inc, a leading provider of enterprise instant messaging and collaboration solutions. Financial terms of the transaction with divine were not disclosed. Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, Parlano's flagship product, MindAlign(TM), has defined the rapidly expanding needs of the Enterprise Instant Messaging (EIM) market since 1996. MindAlign enables dynamic collaboration across the enterprise and with customers and key business partners, resulting in faster, more informed decision-making, more responsive customer service, and improved partner and vendor relationships. It provides for instant one-to-one communication and group collaboration though its unique channels-based technology that allows users to quickly create new channels to support ongoing discussions around projects or topics. Channel content is archived and can be searched by date, time, key word, channel or user. Users also can post documents, live URLs, and alerts to channels, and create filters to be notified when someone is communicating about a topic that is important to them. MindAlign provides the security and robust functionality demanded by financial services firms and is used globally by more than 120,000 financial service professionals.

"We are very excited about the acquisition of Parlano," said Prescott Ashe, Managing Director at Golden Gate Capital. "Parlano is the standard within the financial services community for enterprise instant messaging and collaboration. We believe that Parlano has a great opportunity to leverage its dominating position in financial services and expand into other industries. The growth potential for Parlano in this climate for enterprise IM and Collaboration is exciting for Golden Gate Capital."

Fred Harman, a General Partner at Oak Investments, stated, "Golden Gate Capital and Oak Investment Partners, with approximately $5 billion of capital under management will provide a solid foundation for Parlano to realize its true potential in rapidly evolving enterprise IM and Collaboration space."

Parlano's development and support team will continue with the company, headed by Bob Serr, CTO. To round out the management team Nick Fera and Doug States will rejoin the team as CEO and CFO respectively. "We are looking forward to having Nick and Doug rejoin the team. Both were with Parlano when it was formed in early 2000. Their knowledge of the company, our customers and the market will be a tremendous asset to the business," said Serr.

About the investors

Golden Gate Capital (http://www.goldengatecap.com) is a San Francisco-based private equity investment firm with approximately $700 million of capital under management. Golden Gate is dedicated to partnering with world-class management teams to invest in change-intensive, growth businesses. They target investments of up to $100 million in situations where there is a demonstrable opportunity to significantly enhance a company's value. The principals of Golden Gate have a long and successful history of investing with management partners across a wide range of industries and transaction types, and in particular, have been very active in the enterprise software market.

Oak Investment Partners (http://www.oakinv.com) is a growth-oriented private equity firm with a total of $4.2 billion in committed capital. Investments are primarily focused on growth opportunities in enterprise application and infrastructure software, telecommunications equipment and services, data storage, financial services technology, outsourced services, healthcare services and retail. Over our 25-year history, Oak has achieved a strong track record as a stage-independent investor funding more than 350 companies at various points in their lifecycle. We have been involved in the formation of companies, provided growth equity to mid- and late-stage businesses and financed management-led buyouts, as well as spinouts of operating divisions and technology assets. Our industry focus and willingness to fund operating losses associated with rapid growth sets Oak apart from traditional private equity investment firms.

About Parlano (http://www.parlano.com) headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, is a leading provider of global solutions for real-time communication and collaboration in an enterprise environment. The company's powerful MindAlign solution-designed and tested for enabling secure, real-time collaboration and data messaging within persistent business communities-enables organizations to securely exchange business-critical information with employees, customers and partners on a variety of text-based channels.

Contacts

Parlano Inc.
Ryan Gaylor, 312/925-2417
ryan.gaylor@parlano.com