Open Text, an enterprise content management (ECM) provider, has bought Captaris and will integrate the latter's technology solutions with Open Text's offerings.
The acquisition will strengthen Open Text's relationship with partners SAP, Oracle and Accenture, as its ECM solutions will be integrated with Captaris offerings to manage its partners' systems. In addition, the ECM solutions will be built on the Microsoft.NET framework.
In a statement, John Shackleton, president and CEO of Open Text, notes Captaris will play a key role in extending Open Text's ECM solutions and manage documents from SAP and Oracle ERP systems.
Meanwhile, David Anastasi, president and CEO of Captaris, believes the strategy will strengthen value for shareholders.
Graham Page, Open Text sales VP for central Europe and Africa, predicts there will be bigger acquisitions in the months to come. "The economic crisis and credit crunch are the main reasons behind the growing number of acquisitions in the industry and I believe it's a good time for businesses to acquire over the next six months.”
Major goals
Page says Open Text is driving an aggressive growth strategy in SA and its next goal will be to reach the $2 billion mark in global revenue in the next five years.
"Captaris is one of the largest acquisitions that we've made. We've had a good first quarter, and I believe the next few quarters will be a test. At this stage, we are in a good position and Open Text will be growing significantly within the next few months. Our relationship with one of our bigger partners, SAP, will be helping us drive this strategy forward.”
He adds: “We are increasing the number of implementation partners significantly in SA. Currently, the economy and the exchange rate are some of the biggest challenges in SA and it's a wait-and-see scenario.”
In terms of competition, Page says that, within two years, the company hopes to overtake IBM, Open Text's biggest competitor.
"We have set ourselves two major goals. The first is that we want to be the undisputed leader of ECM in the global market. We are currently in second position, behind IBM, and the acquisition of Captaris will increase our market share.
“Our second major goal is to be number one in terms of revenue and we believe we are moving in the right direction.”
* Can Open Text catch and pass IBM in the ECM market, as it plans? Give us your opinion via our feedback facility.
Share