Enterprise Content Management vendor Open Text has announced it will acquire privately owned Digital Asset Management (DAM) vendor, Artesia Technologies of Rockville, MD.The acquisition is an important step towards helping customers better integrate and manage all types of media for improved content management and collaboration. Close of the transaction is imminent. "Rich media makes up a large and increasing portion of the intellectual capital of world-leading businesses," said Tom Jenkins, Chief Executive Officer of Open Text. "Combined with Open Text solutions, Artesia Technologies will help enhance the comprehensive solutions we offer to companies challenged by next-level compliance requirements in many industries.The acquisition expands Open Text's rich media integration and management capabilities as part of its comprehensive ECM suite, and provides a strong platform from which to address the growing content management needs of media and marketing professionals worldwide. Artesia Technologies is privately owned and best known for its pioneering solutions in Digital Asset Management. With a customer list that includes over 120 globally recognized companies, Artesia provides customer organizations and their marketing and distribution partners with the ability to easily access and collaborate around a centrally managed collection of digital media elements. Applications include: Production Asset Management - Content reuse and collaboration at the center of creative process for digital media content. Brand Asset Management - Control over and reuse of the digital media elements used in marketing campaigns. Distribution Asset Management - Streamlining the distribution of digital media and digital marketing materials to the supply chain. Rich Digital Media Asset Management - Enhances content management and collaboration by extending search, retrieval, viewing and analysis to rich digital media content and its associated metadata. "Open Text introduced new collaboration and content management solutions by combining synchronized audio and video with Livelink and Livelink MeetingZone," said Jenkins. "Last year, we grew that solution with Eloquent, a robust technology platform for using rich media to improve business communications. With the addition of Artesia Technologies, we will effectively incorporate management of rich media into our overall Enterprise Content Management suite." "It is a natural choice for our company, a pioneer at the forefront of Digital Asset Management, to join the world leader in ECM," said Chris Veator, CEO of Artesia Technologies. "Open Text and its ECM vision were natural choices for Artesia Technologies as we investigated ways to expand the solutions we could offer to our Fortune 1000 customers, including some of the most globally recognized brands." The transaction is not material to the financial results or operations of Open Text. The acquisition will be discussed during Open Text's fourth quarter earnings conference call, scheduled for Tuesday, August 31, 2004. For more information or to listen to the call via Web cast, please use the following link: www.opentext.com/events/event.html?id=35509.About Open Text Open Text(TM) is the market leader in providing Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions that bring together people, processes and information in global organizations. Throughout its history, Open Text has matched its tradition of innovation with a track record of financial strength and growth. Today, the company supports more than 17 million seats across 13,000 deployments in 67 countries and 12 languages worldwide. For more information on Open Text, go to: www.opentext.comSource: Open Text Corporation