Plaxo, creator of the smart address book, has agreed to acquire innovative start-up HipCal, developer of an award-winning online calendar service. The acquisition will strengthen Plaxo's calendar platform, and extend the company's business model with new revenue-generating offerings.

The HipCal announcement highlights Plaxo's commitment to providing its members with the best tools and services for accessing and managing all of their personal information on any platform, email client, browser, or mobile device. The addition of HipCal's team and technology will dramatically accelerate Plaxo's efforts in the calendar space, bringing lifestyle management tools such as appointment management, iCal publication and subscription, and group calendars to Plaxo members by the end of 2006.

HipCal is an online calendar, to-list, and address book developed by fraternity brothers Garret Heaton, Pete Curley, Chris Rivers, Tawheed Kader, Glenn Dixon (pictured), as undergraduates at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in 2005. "Our goal with HipCal was simply to create a calendar that makes sense," said Garret Heaton, co-founder and lead programmer, HipCal. "While we created a fantastic online calendar, as a standalone service, we realized more could be done to achieve its fullest potential. Together with Plaxo, we can give people one central, easily accessible service for all the information they need to organize their personal and professional lives."

"In the less than four years, Plaxo has fundamentally changed the way people think about the address book," said Ben Golub, president and CEO, Plaxo, Inc. "With the addition of the skilled HipCal team, we plan to do for the calendar what we did for the address book. The combined Plaxo/HipCal vision will result in the most complete and convenient solution for accessing and updating all of your personal information, and for helping you to stay organized and in-touch with friends, colleagues, customers, and family."

Today, Plaxo offers a smart, self-updating address book that is accessible from any web-enabled device. Plaxo also provides members with universal access to their calendar, tasks and notes. An enhanced, fully integrated and always-accessible calendar raises the bar on what an address book should do giving Plaxo a distinct competitive advantage because it is the natural tie-in with the address book.

Plaxo will acquire all assets of HipCal, including the technologies, for an undisclosed amount. The five founders will become Plaxo employees, but will continue to maintain the HipCal service until its functionality can be incorporated into Plaxo. Plaxo intends to incorporate all of the existing HipCal functionality into its free service. In addition, Plaxo will develop premium, calendar-related services.