Before Slack, big companies paid Jive to make work feel more like Facebook. Its software gave employees profiles, discussion threads, blogs and shared documents inside a private network. Jive started in 2001 as a small software shop and later moved its headquarters to Palo Alto. By its December 2011 IPO, social networking was the hottest idea in tech, and Jive was the business version investors could buy.

From Forums to the Whole Office

Co-founders Bill Lynch and Matt Tucker incorporated Jive in Delaware in February 2001. Its early products included online community software such as discussion forums. In 2007 the company launched the Jive Engage Platform and began selling it by subscription. The bet was that the tools people used to talk online at home could also fix how they worked together on the job. Customers used it inside their companies and on public sites.

A Fast Start, a Discount Exit

Jive priced at $12 a share and listed on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol JIVE. Shares soon ran into the mid-$20s. Growth slowed as Microsoft and newer chat tools crowded the market. In May 2017 ESW Capital agreed to buy Jive for $5.25 a share, or $462 million in cash, through its affiliate Wave Systems. The deal closed in June, and Jive joined ESW's Aurea software group.

Cover: Ballet Dancers, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for dancers on stage (jive).