ECM Report

After all of the acquisitions in the ECM space over the last year or so, it is interesting to finally see some execution of vision and long term game plans. OpenText appears to be flying out of the gate in getting their vision of ECM to market.

I wrote somewhere recently that: “I believe the industry finds itself at a critical juncture. I wouldn’t be surprised to see more deals, but I think the market, for the most part, has defined who the players are and what the game is. There have been a lot of strategic moves lately, but now start looking for more tactical moves. The press releases about “we bought somebody” need to be followed by “we won this deal with a combined offering” and “we released this new integrated product.”

Well, sure enough, OpenText recently has delivered a couple of crucial press releases that speak to this shift back to tactics from strategy. These are the releases:

Open Text Launches Enterprise Instant Messaging for Livelink
Open Text and IXOS Establish Integration Plans for Industry-Leading ECM
Open Text, Ixos To Introduce Combined Pdts Within 6 Mos

These releases are not coincidentally timed with a very noticeable shift in their branding of the products they recently acquired. Nearly everything has been consumed by the Livelink brand and as a result, their marketing message is now very neat, tidy and compelling. Though changing the name of something obviously does not make it better. But when combined with press releases about scheduled integrations as well as new product introductions one has to be impressed.

OpenText appears to be executing their message nicely and a bit quicker than their newfound industry competition. This execution is apparently being noticed by investors. The value of their stock has risen dramatically over the last 30-60 days.