ECM Briefs

This was a busy news week for OpenText! On Wednesday, the company announced it acquired Global 360 Holding Corporation, a leading provider of process and case management solutions, for approximately U.S. $260 million. The acquisition continues OpenText's expansion into the fast growing business process management (BPM) market, adding to its technology, talent, services, partner and geographical strengths, as well as giving the company important new capabilities in dynamic case management.

Global 360, like OpenText and Metastorm, is known for its BPM solutions for Microsoft customers. Global 360 is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and is part of the Microsoft SharePoint ISV Partner Advisory Council which provides guidance and feedback for SharePoint product strategy. Global 360 was also recently honored with two Microsoft Partner of the Year awards, including ISV Partner of the Year. The combined expertise, and mix of process and content solutions that integrate with Microsoft, continue to add to OpenText's position as a leading Microsoft partner and a key provider of solutions that support and extend SharePoint and other Microsoft offerings.

"With its strategic emphasis on content, process and dynamic case management, plus its strong Microsoft relationship, OpenText is a great fit for our customers and our team," said Steve Russell, Global 360 s Senior Vice President, Research & Development and CTO. "Customers can expect us to continue to deliver our leading solutions, plus gain even greater value through access to an expanded solutions portfolio and the support of a much larger company."

On Monday, at Microsoft's 2011 World Partner Conference (WPC) in Los Angeles, OpenText Metastorm released major new versions of the Metastorm BPM® software suite and Metastorm Smart Business Workspace, as well as new Business Performance Intelligence Dashboards. These new product enhancements help organizations successfully implement business process improvement initiatives by empowering users to become more engaged and productive. Metastorm's social collaboration tools provide businesses with a highly personalized workspace and unparalleled access to top contributors, enabling them to drive innovation and increase collaboration and improve efficiency among employees. Find out more in Metastorm's blog: Evolving the Way Work Gets Done.

Also at the WPC, OpenText announced it was named a Microsoft Global Launch Partner for SQL Server Code Name "Denali," a cloud-ready information platform now available for community review. In this announcement, OpenText also unveiled that it had been selected as a finalist for the 2011 Microsoft ISV/Software Line of Business Partner of the Year Award.

For more on these announcements, check out the following publications: The Financial Post, IT World Canada, The Record, Information Management, Information Week, and two CMS articles posted July 11th and July 13th. You can also view OpenText video highlights from WPC showcasing RightFax and OpenText Metastorm.

While OpenText was keeping the presses hot, OT employees were representing at three major events in the United States: Sunday July 10th marked the opening of the aforementioned Microsoft WPC where OpenText was a proud sponsor and exhibitor; The Purpose-Driven Speaker Series kicked off Monday July 11th in New York City where Simon Sinek's talk was well received and evident in the flurry of twitter activity praising the thought-provoking session; and lastly the first annual OpenText Global Fax Summit, featuring all things fax, took place from Tuesday July 12th-14th in Tucson, Arizona.

On OpenText's Innovate blog this week, Chief Strategy Officer Tom Jenkins shares a video montage documenting content trends and market observations from his Thought Leadership Tour in Asia and Australia; Liz Kofsky discusses the connection between records management and information governance; and Karen Weir provides an update on a Knowledge Center project currently underway to serve you better.     

On Conversations, James Latham dissects customer satisfaction measurements and scores and suggests ways in which we can improve our customers' experience such as listening then reacting. 

In other blogs this week, Lubor Ptacek addresses the "why" of the Global 360 acquisition, promoting that with the combination of "Metastorm, Global 360, and the existing TCM solutions, OpenText has one of the broadest product portfolios and one of the largest and most experienced teams in the world of BPM ".

With numerous OpenText technologies available, sometimes it's hard to choose just one! Dynegy selected multiple OT resources to streamline business processes and improve productivity. Sloan Valve took advantage of OpenText Web Site Management to put its best website forward and enhance customer experience and content management.   

Today, Monday, July 11th, marks the beginning of the Purpose-Driven Speaker Series. Simon Sinek, author of Start With Why, will lead the series off with a motivating talk on leaders and their ability to inspire others to achieve success. Follow the conversation on Twitter using #purposebiz. The next chapter in the series will take place in September with Michael Edson, Director of Web and New Media Strategy for the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, D.C.

The 2011 Microsoft World Partner Conference (WPC) in Los Angeles also gets its start today. OpenText, a sponsor of this four day event, is also attending as an exhibitor and can be found at booth # 435. With an action-packed agenda, you can catch live keynotes and choose from hundreds of sessions to gain information on how to grow your business while making valuable contacts. Follow the conversation on Twitter using #WPC11.

The first annual OpenText Global Fax Summit gets underway tomorrow, Tuesday, July 12th, in Tucson, Arizona. The Fax Solutions Group is looking forward to a productive and informative three days! This faxing forum will cover all things "fax" including products, solutions, partners, and support and services.   

Be sure to make time for tomorrow's webinar The OpenText Extended ECM for SAP Solutions: Putting Your Content in Business. This webcast begins at 11am EDT and will be lead by Marc Diefenbruch, Director of Program Management. Click here to register.

The highly anticipated Purpose Driven Speaker Series kicks off Monday, July 11th in New York City with Simon Sinek, the author of Start with Why. Hear why and how purpose drives success and leave motivated to take action. This is your last chance to register for your complimentary seat!

In articles this week, OpenText's Jennifer McCredie spoke with 570News on the growing cloud computing trend in the corporate and consumer market. While cloud computing is not new, it is gaining popularity due to quick and easy access to content without having to store it. Deb Lavoy shared her view on the latest corporate news in a CMS Wire article but did so through a different perspective, one that she calls "the lens of purpose". Graham Pullen, Vice President Asia Pacific OpenText, took part in a ZDNet document security roundtable and cited three current disruptors in business: the cloud, mobility, and social networking.

On OpenText's Innovate Blog this week, Chief Strategy Officer Tom Jenkins recognizes that content production is outpacing regulation and creating a need for new content management strategies; Scott Bowen laments on the importance of checking the facts before publishing; and guest Content World video blogger, Sherri Taylor, gives a preview of what's to come at the Innovation Lab at Content World 2011 in Orlando.

In addition, the new OpenText Online blog went live on Innovate this week! This blog covers topics around the Knowledge Center, Communities, CSS (My Tickets), and the OpenText corporate website (www). Check out the first two posts by Karen Weir, The Blog to End All Blogs and OpenText...Drinking Our Own KoolAid.

On Conversations, Martin Sumner-Smith provides some background on the new OpenText Online blog, and Alex Benay offers further insight into the Public Service Without Borders solution. Alex also proudly points out that the new state of the art Ottawa OpenText office was on clear display when the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge passed by during the Canada Day Celebrations.

Also this week on Conversations, Jennifer McCredie uses a large Canadian bank as an example of the idea that web centricity can and will drive customer centricity; the Fax Solutions Blog clears up some dialing rule questions with a post all about the 'plus' sign; and Marci Maddox gave us a refreshing reminder that you can't believe everything you read.

In other blogs, Lubor Ptacek discusses buzz words picked up from his time at the Enterprise 2.0 conference and fills us in on the QR code obsession. He also addresses a classic chicken and egg scenario in another blog exploring whether content management is a feature of collaboration or collaboration is a feature of content management. OpenText Metastorm posted two new blogs, one focused on the transformation from IT to BT, and the other confronting the social stigma that workers face when trying to employ social BPM.

Connect, share, create, implement! Collaboration is key to any innovative project. The ability to communicate in an efficient and interactive manner facilitates productivity. This week read how Cohn&Wolfe achieved this through integrating OpenText Collaboration. The Brain Institute at the University of Utah also employed our technology solutions in order to expand brain research through collaboration.

Congratulations to everyone at OpenText for the recognition we received this week from two of the key industry analyst firms!

OpenText was named a finalist in the third annual Forrester Research Voice Of The Customer Awards. The Forrester Research Voice Of The Customer Award recognizes initiatives that help companies dramatically improve how they collect, interpret, and react to customer feedback.

OpenText was one of 10 finalists chosen from over 40 award entries. Winners and finalists for this award are selected based on five criteria: clarity of approach, business value to the organization, positive impact on customer experience, innovation, and potential for other companies to repeat the practice.

"The comprehensive, enterprise-wide "culture of the customer" initiative that OpenText has in place brings customer-centricity to the center of the company on a global basis. Our focus has been based on proactive and extensive brand, value, and experience research; the findings of which all pointed to the importance of fostering improved relationships with our customers as a key strategy for growth and competitive advantage across the organization," said James Latham, OpenText's Chief Marketing Officer.

In addition to being nominated for Forrester's prestigious award, OpenText Metastorm was positioned as a leader in the 2011 IDC MarketScape report on Business Process (BP) Platforms. This IDC study uses the IDC MarketScape model to assess the capabilities of vendors to support midrange to complex process improvement scenarios using business process management software.

"With any technology purchase, the ability to deliver results on time, on budget, and in scope is the marker of a good decision. To achieve those results using a BP platform means that enterprises need to take into account how well the software will support the business process, rules that govern the process, the ability to interoperate with third-party applications and systems to consume and deliver data in support of the process, and the strength of the overall architecture to maximize agility and reusability," said Maureen Fleming, program vice president, Business Process Management and Middleware Research programs.

On OpenText's Innovate blog this week, Chief Strategy Officer Tom Jenkins discusses how ECM 2.0 can help you leverage the cloud for more than just apps; Lubor Ptacek recaps his conversations with The Globe & Mail regarding semantic search; and Maureen Gallagher talks about social monitoring tools and the data they can provide.

On Conversations, Joyce Hostyn discusses the value of stories and her experiences from speaking at the PAB2011 conference in Ottawa. Also, read the latest post from the Fax Solutions Team, which discusses how a global manufacturing organization in Ohio is using RightFax to replace all their traditional fax machines, analog phone lines, as well as the toner, paper and maintenance costs that went with them.

Looking for something to do this weekend? Tune in on Sunday, July 3rd at 6:30 pm ET, to watch a recent CTV Province Wide interview with OpenText Chairman Tom Jenkins.

Also, don't forget to register for the first speaking event in the Purpose-Driven Speaker series with Author Simon Sinek, which occurs in New York on July 11th. For updates on future events that are part of this speaker series, please join the mailing list and follow the speaker series on Facebook, as well as on Twitter using this hash tag: #purposebiz

It's amazing how OpenText is helping organizations around the world! This week, read how the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments integrated OpenText's solutions to increase productivity and improve inefficiencies caused by their workflow processes. Also, check out how Lone Star College System - the largest educational institution in Houston, Texas - improved its online user experience with OpenText.

WEBINARS:

Wednesday, June, 29th our webinar The Efficient Way to Really Reach Your Customers will focus on the goal of not just knowing your customers but connecting with them. Attendees will learn why personalizing information is ideal and how they can achieve this in a cost effective manner. OpenText StreamServe will be showcased for its accomplishment of assisting over 5,000 organizations worldwide in improving their customer-business relations. 

Our other Wednesday webinar will offer an overview of the newest OpenText ECM Suite Engagement product, OpenText Web and Social Analytics. This introduction will cover the "what", "how", "where", and "why" of the new addition.

Thursday's webinar, OpenText WebReports: Next Generation in Action, will look at what has become possible with the next generation WebReports processing engine. Updated functionality will be reviewed and demonstrations on how to solve technical problems will be provided. See why WebReports is a top selling module for OpenText Content Server!

On Monday, OpenText announced the next major release of OpenText Social Workplace, a fully integrated social collaboration environment designed to help purpose-driven teams assemble, stay connected, and achieve breakthrough results. OpenText Social Workplace is a new kind of people-centric enterprise application that works through either SaaS or on-premise deployment. It helps cross-functional teams form quickly and collaborate effectively with minimal training or technical support. The latest release has a number of new features including optional integration with OpenText ECM Suite 2010 for comprehensive records management and governance, chat, and important additions to the wiki editor, among other enhancements. 

The announcement was made at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston. During a keynote presentation, Tyler Knowlton, of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade for Canada (DFAIT), showcased how Social Workplace is helping the G-20 improve collaboration among delegates from member countries around the world.

Also at the conference, OpenText announced the Prize for Purpose-Driven Business, a contest to recognize organizations that are effectively dedicated to a purpose. See Deb Lavoy discuss the Purpose-Driven Speaker Series and the prize in this video recorded from Enterprise 2.0. Please register for the first speaking event in this series with Author Simon Sinek, which occurs in New York on July 11th. For updates on this speaker series, please join the mailing list and follow the speaker series on Facebook.

Be sure to listen to James Latham's latest podcast, which provides an overview of what it means for an organization to be purpose-driven and how social media technologies can help teams to be more effective as a result.

On Innovate this week, Jeremy Barnes brings back Laurie Powers, from our Learning Services team, for a second guest post on the Content World blog. Here, she discusses the value of attending the training program at Content World 2011. Earlier in the week, guest blogger Todd Partridge, GM of eDOCS and Legal Solutions at OpenText, offered eDOCS customers a preview of what they can expect to see at Content World 2011.

On Conversations, Deb Lavoy shares notes from her keynote with Tyler Knowlton of the Canadian DFAIT; the Fax Solutions team questions whether public sector fax processes are secure, and describes how to use OCR from RightFax; and Joyce Hostyn discusses how important listening is to collaboration.

Want to hear about how OpenText's solutions are benefiting companies worldwide? Listen to this audio case study in which Randall Peterson, Vice President of Information Technology, discusses how Open Text ECM Suite for SAP Solutions enhances key business processes at World Kitchen. Also, hear how Hyatt Hotels deployed OpenText to keep up the customer service that it is known for.

EVENTS:

From Monday, June 20th, through Thursday, June 23rd, attend the Enterprise 2.0 Conference  in Boston. Leaders in the industry will share their expertise on the future of social business and delve into the "why" and "how" of introducing Enterprise 2.0 to your organization. Andrew McAfee's June 21st keynote will provide a look at the evolution of Enterprise 2.0 and the two biggest threats facing it. Panelists will also enter into thought provoking discussions on related topics. OpenText's James Latham will sit on a panel looking at The Vendor Landscape for HR Technology and OpenText's Deb Lavoy will join with Tyler Knowlton to explore the growth and future of Enterprise 2.0, as well as to describe the social media solutions used for the G2 Conferences. OpenText will be situated at Booth 515, where attendees can view demos and collect information on our new social media offerings, including OTSW 2.0. 

Wednesday, June 22 marks the beginning of the Gartner Enterprise Architecture Summit  in San Diego. This two day event offers Information Technology insight for senior business and IT professionals through various workshops, case studies, keynote speakers, and networking. Leaders at the Gartner EA Summit will share the many EA techniques that can be utilized to implement organizational change and increase your success. Representatives from Metastorm will be located at Booth 1.

Also taking place on Wednesday, June 22nd is the Digital Continuity and Enterprise Information Management in Government session. This UK half day event will be lead by OpenText, Bramble.cc and The National Archives. Central Government Account Executive, Stephen Walsh, and Director of Value Engineering EMEA, Adrian Butcher, will represent OpenText and share its vision for "smarter, cheaper, greener" IT across Government.

Metastorm's Social BPM webinar gets underway Thursday, June 23. Participants will see how being social can stimulate productivity. This webinar will also cover how to leverage current employees and direct tasks suited to specific workers for more effective and efficient completion. Attendees will also increase their knowledge and improve their skills when it comes to employing "integrated, context-aware communications" to achieve faster results, make better decisions, and overcome challenges.

WEBINARS:

Make sure to register for Tuesday's webinar, when OpenText employees from the User Experience, Design, and Product Management teams will field questions regarding concepts and functionality, as well as share plans for the future. You may even get a sneak peek at current prototypes! 

Wednesday's webinar will demonstrate how common challenges faced by global organizations, such as low bandwith, network latency, and intermittently connected branch offices can be solved through constructing a distributed OpenText Content Server environment.

On Monday, OpenText announced the release of a new version of OpenText Integration Center featuring an enhanced, native connector to OpenText ECM Suite 2010. This new version enables customers to better leverage their structured and unstructured content to reduce costs and improve efficiency. OpenText Integration Center unifies access to multiple sources of disparate information from OpenText ECM Suite for applications such as business systems integration, legacy decommissioning, in-place content management and content migration.

"The current economic conditions are forcing organizations to reduce the number of information sources by bringing structured and unstructured content together under the roof of a single business process and repository," said Eugene Cherny, General Manager for OpenText's Connectivity Solutions. "By combining these worlds in the OpenText ECM Suite, we give customers a powerful solution that helps them reduce costs during a tough economy, while enabling them to do more with their information."

The new release of OpenText Integration Center is available now. See here for more information.

Heading to the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston next week? Listen to this podcast from OpenText CMO James Latham, who provides a preview of the panel topics that are planned for this conference. If you plan on tweeting from the show or just want to follow what's happening live from the show, please include both the #OpenText and #e2conf hash tags when using Twitter.

While attending New York Content Day in Times Square last month, OpenText Chief Strategy Officer Tom Jenkins prepared an exciting video that summarizes the top three trends in content management today. He discusses these content trends in greater detail in this article, which appears on the web site of the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation. Be sure to also check out Tom's Content Shift blog this week, where he discusses how to prevent wiki leaks on an enterprise level.

On the Innovate this week, Alison Clarke asks about the effectiveness of your contract management strategy; Lubor Ptacek points out why we can't rely on software alone to be social; John Price dissects the notion that collaboration trumps workflow; and Jeremy Reed has guest blogger Jennifer Bustos share exciting news about Content World 2011 sponsorship opportunities.

On OpenText's Conversations blog, the Fax Solutions Team outlines how to make a fax confidential, how to make custom cover sheets, and discusses the integration of RightFax and SAP solutions. Also on the blog, Kim Edwards discusses why the rewards outweigh the risks when getting involved in promoting your company socially.

As a reminder, check out the list of great speakers lined up for the Purpose-Driven Speaker Series, which kicks off in New York with Simon Sinek on July 11th. For updates on this speaker series, please join the mailing list and follow the speaker series on Facebook.

For our case studies this week, read OpenText's solutions have helped the University of Kansas get organized and save money; and how our solutions helped Southwark Council go digital and become more sustainable!
 

EVENTS:

1. From now through Thursday, learn what it takes to the get to the next level at the Elite User Conference. With an interactive approach, this event offers over one hundred informative sessions. Attend Scholar Day and get hands on training for 3E and Enterprise. For more details, click here.
   
2. Join OpenText at the AIIM Roadshow taking place through Thursday! Take part in focus groups, compare solutions and technologies, evaluate the different versions of Microsoft SharePoint 2011, get the latest in ECM innovation, and learn how to effectively manage your information and documents. For more information, click here.
        

WEBINARS:

1. Tuesday's webinar will focus on the newly faceted browsing functionality of OpenText Content Server 10 and how to maximize facets and columns. For more information and to register, click here. 
   
2. Thursday's webinar will cover how to create solid design principles and how they can be used as a guide for decision making and a foundation for smooth implementation. For more details, click here.
    
   

Last week, we announced the Purpose-Driven Speaker Series, which begins in July and lasts throughout the year. This speaker series will feature bestselling authors and thought leaders in digital technology, including Simon Sinek and MIT's Andrew McAfee, who will focus on how companies can become truly social and collaborative organizations. The series is inspired by the premise that people can reach higher and achieve more when they have a shared understanding and a common purpose. Please consider registering for the first session to be held in New York on July 11th. For updates on this speaker series, please join the mailing list and follow the speaker series on Facebook.

On Tuesday, June 7th, OpenText announced that it has joined forces with the Institute of Public Administration of Canada (IPAC) to launch a new and exciting service for the public sector around the world called Public Service without Borders (PSWB). The secure, cloud-enabled collaboration and social media site, based on OpenText's Social Workplace software, will connect all levels of public service employees to one another in order to network, share ideas, impart valuable lessons learned in such areas as governance, healthcare, technology and the environment, and engage.

OpenText RightFax 10 was released on Wednesday, including enhanced security for sending and receiving faxes from cloud-based office systems including Microsoft Office 365 and Google Apps. RightFax 10 marks the kick-off of the 25th anniversary year for RightFax and represents a significant milestone in the product's history.

In addition to enhanced support for cloud-based office systems, the new release makes it easier, faster and more secure for customers to integrate faxing into their business processes and workflows with new features such as barcode routing, searchable PDF delivery and enhanced Microsoft Outlook 2010 and Lotus Notes 8.5 integration. It also adds optional accessibility support that meets mandates under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Fax industry analysts at Davidson Consulting have also recently named OpenText the leading overall fax server supplier and the leading supplier in the fast-growing fax over IP (FoIP) market! In the firm's report, called Fax over IP Server Markets: 2010-2015, OpenText achieved the leading position in the FoIP segment by virtue of its 46-percent revenue growth in the past year and captured 31 percent of the market. Congratulations!

While in China recently, Chief Strategy Officer Tom Jenkins met with Computerworld Editor, Dabin Zo, to discuss the challenges that Enterprise Content Management (ECM) is facing. Read what they talked about in Tom's latest post on OpenText's Innovate blog. Also on Innovate, Alison Clarke questions whether BPM or ECM projects takes precedence; Tracy Caughell discusses the pros and cons of MoReq2010 - the modular requirements for records systems;

On the Conversations blog, we have four new posts this week: OpenText CMO James Latham discusses five key ways to capitalize on big data; Jennifer McCredie talks about how to bring together a social web experience; Martin Sumner-Smith outlines the value of social media to an enterprise; and Tom Walker provides a recap of conversations overheard at SAP's SAPPHIRE Conference in Orlando.

We've got three new customer testimonials for your review this week. First, read how the Illinois Association of School Administrators created a professional community for Superintendents using OpenText Social Workplace. In this case study, learn how OpenText's Web Site Management solutions enable the City of Surrey to deliver a targeted experience to its visitors on the Web and mobile devices. Finally, check out how the Central Arizona Project uses OpenText ECM Suite to manage a river of information!