Open Text Corporation Announces Results for Third Quarter of Fiscal 2000

b2bScene.com signs first major customer and Company appoints Alan Hoverd new CFO

Waterloo, Ontario - 2000-04-27 - Open Text Corporation (Nasdaq: OTEX, TSE: OTC) today announced results for its third quarter ended March 31, 2000.

Revenues for the quarter were $28.5 million, an increase of 7% over the previous quarter and 28% year-to-date. Third quarter net income was $4.4 million or $0.19 per share (fully diluted) compared to net income of $0.19 per share in the third quarter last year. Net income year-to-date was $22.8 million compared to $6.2 million in the previous year. Excluding one time gains (investments) and charges (foreign exchange, goodwill), the Company realized a gain of $0.14 million or $0.01 per share (fully diluted). License revenues were $14.2 million, an increase of 9% over the previous quarter.

Cash flow from operations during the quarter was $7 million, contributing to the Company s total cash balance of $109 million, or $4.72 per share as at March 31, 2000. Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) have been significantly improved by another 11 days to 89 days.

The results also incorporate new investments in b2bScene.com and an ASP initiative, which the Company announced in the quarter. These investments accounted for $1 million in expenses.

We are particularly pleased we are profitable despite carrying the additional costs of establishing b2bScene.com and our ASP initiative. We believe profitability will improve as these initiatives come to fruition, says Tom Jenkins, Chief Executive Officer, Open Text Corporation. In our core business, growth in license sales of Livelink drove our results this quarter, as we continue to benefit from the post Y2K period with corporations turning their attention to implementing e-business solutions using Livelink. Specifically, during the quarter, we announced that the United States Navy, Scotland Yard and KPNQwest chose Livelink as enterprise-wide standards for collaboration.

Agilent Selects b2bScene.com:

Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE: A) selected b2bScene.com e-business application services to host virtual project teams. Open Text s b2bScene.com Division and Agilent Technologies signed an agreement for b2bScene.com to provide collaborative virtual-community hosting services for improving the interaction of Agilent test and measurement project teams at multiple locations.

New b2bScene.com Division:

During the quarter, Open Text announced the creation of b2bScene.com, a separate operating Division of the Company. b2bScene.com, which provides private and public community services to the b2b marketplace, has been a success since its launch in the middle of the third quarter, with traffic more than doubling in the past month.

Market:

Now that the Global 2000 sector has emerged from the Y2K lockdown period, we look forward to benefiting from the renewed interest of corporations in using Livelink as the mission critical support in developing e-business applications for collaboration, said Jenkins. We are also pleased with the continued growth of our install base. During the quarter we continued our b2b user growth and now have more than 3.8 million users.

ASP Strategy underway:

Today, Open Text announced an Application Services Provider (ASP) strategy to create a worldwide network of ASP partners. The Affinity ASP program will extend the Company s market reach, targeting small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) through its ASP partners. SMEs are now investing in the development of e-business applications by using the hosted services model to accelerate delivery, minimize risk and reduce overall cost of ownership. During the quarter, Open Text announced a strategic ASP relationship with a major telecommunications firm, KPNQwest, the joint venture of KPN and Qwest. The Affinity ASP program will result in an expanded distribution channel for Livelink, making it available, for the first time, to SMEs.

Alan Hoverd Appointed New CFO:

It is with great pleasure that Open Text promotes Alan Hoverd to the position of CFO. Mr. Hoverd has more than 30 years experience in financial management, with the last 15 years as an executive at the $2 billion Canadian subsidiary of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), where he last held the position of CFO and VP Finance.

Shareholder Value:

During the quarter, Open Text completed its substantial issuer bid, announcing on January 14, 2000 that it had taken up and arranged payment for 4 million of its common shares at $20 per share, for a total of $80 million. The purchased shares have been cancelled, reducing the number of common shares outstanding to approximately 20 million shares. The Company plans to continue its share repurchase program through its normal course issuer bid. After taking into account the purchase and the sale of securities, the cash balance was $109 million at the end of the quarter.

Other Highlights of the Quarter:

Global 2000 customers continued to add to their deployments of Livelink as an e-business application. Nortel Networks and Raytheon continue to be significant follow-on customers. Open Text shipped its portal product, myLivelink, during the quarter and expects a rapid adoption in the coming quarters. Open Text and Research In Motion Limited (RIM), a world leader in the mobile communications market, announced a strategic relationship in the third quarter with plans to integrate Livelink and BlackBerry features so that mobile Livelink users may collaborate dynamically within their organizations and throughout their supply chain communities. Also, during the third quarter, Open Text grew its install base to 3.8 million users of the Livelink product family for e-business.

About b2bscene.com

b2bScene.com, a Division of Open Text, is the first cross-industry, collaborative commerce e-marketplace offering a collection of b2b services to small, medium and large organizations. In addition to buying and selling goods and services online, our e-marketplace promotes e-business interaction and collaboration between buyers and sellers, facilitating dialogue between parties, automating business processes and managing the wealth of information around each transaction. b2bScene.com leverages a variety of industry leading applications including Open Text's leading collaborative business applications to achieve dynamic interaction between an organization's employees, business partners and customers in both public and private trading communities.

About Open Text

Open Text has pioneered the development of innovative intranet and extranet ebusiness applications. Since creating one of the first search engines to index the World Wide Web, the Company has remained at the forefront of Internet-based technologies. It s product family called Livelink enables individuals, teams, organizations, and global trading communities to collaborate on e-business applications that facilitate e-commerce and other transactions among Global 2000 organizations. Open Text has become one of the largest providers of Web based collaboration for e-business applications for e-communities of all types from intranets to extranets and public groups. The Livelink product family has over 3.5 million users in 3,800 installations in 31 countries, speaking 12 languages throughout the world. For more information, visit www.opentext.com.

Trademark

Copyright © 2000 by Open Text Corporation. Livelink, myLivelink, b2bScene.com and Open Text are trademarks or registered trademarks of Open Text Corporation. This list is not exhaustive. Other product and Company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Release Disclaimer

This news release may contain forward-looking statements relating to the deployment of Livelink and myLivelink by customers, and future performance of Open Text Corporation and b2bScene.com. Forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially. These risks and uncertainties include, among others, risks involved in the completion and integration of acquisitions, the possibility of technical, logistical or planning issues in connection with deployments, the continuous commitment of the Company s customers and other risks detailed from time to time in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), including the final prospectus for the Company s initial public offering of common stock in January 1996, Form 10-K for the years ended June 30, 1997, June 30, 1998 and June 30, 1999, and Form 10-Q for the quarters ended September 30, 1999 and December 31, 1999. Forward-looking statements are based on management s beliefs and opinions at the time the statements are made, and the Company does not undertake any obligations to update forward-looking statements should circumstances or management s beliefs or opinions change.

For more information, please contact

Alan Hoverd
Chief Financial Officer
Open Text Corporation
(519) 888-7111 ext.2480
ahoverd@opentext.com

Margaret E. Dobbin
Director, Industry Analyst Relations
Open Text Corporation
+1-519-888-7111 ext.2410
mdobbin@opentext.com