Open Text Announces New ERP Product Plans, New Hires

Now that the acquisition of Captaris by Open Text is no longer an intention but a fact, what does the Enterprise CMS giant plan to do with this Washington-based provider of document management and delivery solutions?

Captaris Acquisition is Final

The merger was completed last week. Captaris is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Open Text Inc. Shares of Captaris’ common stock, which prior to the merger traded on NASDAQ under CAPA, are in the process of being delisted from trading.

“With the merger now complete, we are in an excellent position to take advantage of the opportunities that lie before us as a combined company,” said John Shackleton, president and CEO at Open Text.

Captaris to Focus on ERP

Open Text has announced its initial product plans in regards to Captaris. Captaris has what it takes to strengthen Open Text’s position in the Enterprise CMS market by broadening the suite of solutions and playing a key role in integrations with SAP, Microsoft and Oracle — the three strategic partners of Open Text — and management of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)-related content.

Strategic Partnership with Microsoft

Speaking of one of Open Text's strategic partners, Microsoft, Captaris will be leveraged in document processing for Microsoft. This is the time to use the newest product that automatically exposes the contents of scanned documents in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server to search engines, making them easier to locate for business processes or eDiscovery.

Like Open Text, Captaris is a Microsoft Gold-Certified Partner.

Captaris’ Strengths and Features

Captaris' document capture solutions provide an “on ramp” for ECM by converting paper documents arriving by mail or fax to electronic form, so they can be managed online. Captaris offers powerful capture technology that uses imaging, scanning and recognition technologies, plus classification and routing software that complements Open Text's solutions.

Captaris' software allows organizations to automate the process of inputting information from thousands of paper documents and eliminate the inevitable human errors and confidentiality issues involved when paper-based data has to be entered by hand.

With several references to today’s economy, Shackleton also mentioned that this combined effort will allow customers to make more cost-efficient decisions by utilizing the end-to-end management of content for customers' SAP or Oracle systems.

While somewhat vague, this promise should certainly bring smiles to CPA’s faces, for example, who can potentially enjoy the boosted productivity and lowered costs, when it comes to such activities as handling of problem invoices, reducing processing times and allowing companies to better leverage on-time payment discounts.

Captaris’ Human Resources

By purchasing Captaris, Open Text has also inherited some headcount to contribute to Open Text's expertise in complex business processes in large organizations. “Captaris' knowledgeable team of professionals is clearly an asset. Customers who choose Open Text value our broad expertise and our singular focus on ECM,” said Shackleton.

In addition to inheriting around 565 employees, Open Text just wrapped up a flurry of new hires in the APAC region.

Open Text’s Hiring Spree in APAC

Who said no one hires in Q4? Open Text makes its HR department sweat regardless of the time of the year — or the time zone, for that matter. The company has
announced several appointments in Australia and New Zealand.

Sean Guillemot, a former IBM employee, has been appointed channel account executive. He will be responsible for supporting growth in the channel business, including sales and systems strategies and market development.

Ian Poulton joined Open Text as senior solutions consultant with responsibility for the enterprise content management suite. Poulton comes from Open Text’s competitor Vignette Australia where he served as a sales engineer.

Simon Niblock, another Vignette former, has been appointed Asia-Pacific lead account development executive.

Craig Bates, previously of EMC, has been appointed Australia-New Zealand major account executive.

Tim Morris has been appointed Australian sales manager for Open Text Web Solutions Group. Open Text Web Solutions is the latest release of Open Text’s Web CMS RedDot product that heavily focuses on Enterprise 2.0.

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