United States Air Force Chooses Livelink to Manage Outsourcing Operations

Open Text Enables Air Force to Cut Time Managing Outsourcing by 71%

Waterloo, ON - 1999-02-18 - Open Text Corporation (NASDAQ:OTEX; TSE:OTC), today announced that the United States Air Force is utilizing Livelink to manage its Business Solutions Exchange (BSX), which involves uniting the people, process, and policies of Air Force service contracting in a single system. Prior to using Livelink, the Air Force was using a variety of client-server based systems, which couldn't manage this process across different geographic locations. With Livelink, the Air Force has shortened the time spent from identifying point of need to completing a performance requirement document (PRD) from seven months to eight weeks, which is approximately 70% less time spent.

"The US Air Force's Air Education and Training Command is using Livelink not only as a common repository and collaborative workspace, but also as a means to capture knowledge from the public and incorporate this knowledge into common business processes," said Dan Latendre, Vice President, Product Marketing, Open Text Corporation. "The Air Force's implementation is an excellent example of the evolution of collaborative knowledge management -using Livelink to harness the tacit knowledge of the general public to improve business solutions, save time and reduce costs."

Since July 1998, the Air Force has been using Livelink on a variety of outsourcing projects. The first and largest project can be found at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. The goal of the Business Solutions Exchange process is to continually improve Air Force business practices. BSX goes to work as soon as a requirement is identified and a Business Strategy Team is formed. Livelink is used throughout the lifecycle of the project from requirements definition to contract close-out, connecting a cross-functional team dispersed across a given base and the command. This implementation of Livelink is running on Windows NT Server, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Exchange and accessed through Microsoft Internet Explorer. A team, often composed of people from six different locations in the US, is formed to create a performance requirement document (PRD) and uses Livelink as its central knowledge library to gather market research, establish an acquisition plan, baseline costs, eliminate regulatory constraints, draft requirements, and gather feedback from customers and industry on the contract requirements.

The BSX team uses Livelink's workflow, tasks and version control to work together throughout the planning, execution, and supplier management phases. Teams use the public folders found at www.bsx.org, to gather feedback from industry on ways to improve existing requirements documents. In addition, the public sites include process-oriented libraries of best practices that are available to other agencies whether or not they use the collaborative capabilities of Livelink.

"The USAF's implementation of Livelink is a great example of how a huge corporation can dramatically cut costs and improve processes by using technology to allow people to collaborate easily and efficiently," said Donna Conner, Microsoft's worldwide knowledge management marketing manager. "Working with partners, like Open Text, Microsoft is delivering knowledge management solutions that enable enterprises to obtain maximum value from their computer infrastructures."

Release Disclaimer

Note to Editors: Open Text and Livelink are trademarks of Open Text Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies. This news release may contain forward-looking statements relating to the future performance of Open Text Corporation. Forward-looking statements, specifically those concerning future performance, are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially. These risks and uncertainties are 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 and June 30, 1998, and Form 10-Q for the quarters ended March 31, 1998, September 30, 1998 and December 31, 1998.

For more information, please contact

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

Sarah Burns
High Road Communications
(416) 368-8348
sburns@highrd.com