Open Text Extends Alliance with Microsoft, Announces New Comprehensive Solution for Law Firms
New Offering Enables Law Firms To Utilize Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Matter Lifecycle Management, While Mitigating Legal and Compliance Risks
ILTA '07, ORLANDO, FL, Aug. 20 / - Open Text(TM) (NASDAQ:OTEX)(NASDAQ:TSX:)(NASDAQ:OTC), the largest independent provider of Enterprise Content Management (ECM) software and solutions, today announced plans for an integrated solution with Microsoft software for matter lifecycle management and practice support targeted to law firms worldwide. The new solution will combine Open Text's specialized legal industry expertise in matter lifecycle management and proactive compliance, with the collaboration and document management capabilities of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. Open Text announced the news today at the International Legal Technology Association's (ILTA) annual conference underway this week in Orlando, FL.
The companies' plans are aimed at an industry where ECM needs are growing fast. Law firms have unique requirements when it comes to controlling and managing sensitive client information, and addressing firm policies. Attorneys and staff must be able to work with content in matter-centric or practice-centric views using secure "virtual cabinets", and all information, including email, must be managed through defined lifecycles. Adding to the complexity, law firms have become increasingly global, with geographically dispersed teams that need global views of information and powerful collaboration tools.
Working with Microsoft, Open Text is well suited to address the evolving needs of the legal market. SharePoint Server 2007 is popular in law firms, providing broadly used intranet, extranet and collaboration capabilities, while Open Text offers extensive legal market expertise and ECM solutions tailored to specific law firm processes. With the new solution, law firms gain greater value from their SharePoint Server 2007 investments. SharePoint Server 2007 can become the firm's central content repository, and attorneys and staff can continue to work in their familiar SharePoint Server 2007 environments while still leveraging Open Text's matter and practice-centric views of content, virtual file cabinets and seamless integration with firm processes - a "best-of-both-worlds" scenario.
"Our strategic relationships with Open Text and Microsoft are important to our firm," said Andy Jurczyk, CIO of Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP, an international law firm with thirteen U.S. offices and a global reach throughout Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and Canada. "We have standardized on the Open Text legal solutions suite because of its rich functionality and strategic alliance with Microsoft. The close relationship between Open Text and Microsoft reaffirms the merits of our decision as it reinforces the solid foundation on which we are building our proactive compliance framework and ensures the firm's continued leadership in the delivery of legal services on a global scale."
The integrated solution will provide complete matter lifecycle management, from matter inception to closure. Firms will be able to manage the intake of new business and potential conflicts of interest, establish "ethical walls" separating client cases, and provide records management and archiving that meets compliance requirements. Working in a matter-centric environment, users will be able to access documents and email in different repositories; perform federated searches across matters; and automatically assign metadata to allow correct classification of documents and pre-population of relevant content - all the information management functionality today's lawyers demand. The single point of content management also means that firms can apply retention schedules across repositories in a consistent and centralized manner.
"A law firm, like any organization, is looking for new ways to increase productivity and reduce risks," said Brian Zeve, Managing Director, Microsoft Professional Services Industry Solutions. "We've seen a strong reception for SharePoint Server 2007 in the legal market and Open Text is adding even more value to help customers address the twin concerns of compliance and productivity. By offering Open Text's legal capabilities within SharePoint Server 2007, we'll be able to offer customers the kind of integration they need for a truly comprehensive ECM strategy."
"Our plans with Microsoft in the legal market follow the strategic course we set together in the ECM market two years ago," said Bill Forquer, President, Defined Markets at Open Text. "We said we would combine the power of Microsoft's productivity tools with our ECM solutions and vertical-market expertise, in this case our knowledge of the law firm business. Through this working relationship, Open Text has become a leader in delivering solutions that extend SharePoint Server 2007 (http://www.opentext.com/news/pr.htmlid=1874). We're taking that expertise to the legal market and offering our customers a whole new way to meet the demands of managing client information and addressing the compliance risks of information."
Earlier this year, Open Text was first-to-market with a U.S. Department of Defense (DoD)-certified records management solution for the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 release (http://www.opentext.com/news/pr.htmlid=1835), and introduced Regulated Documents for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (http://www.opentext.com/news/pr.htmlid=1840), which provides document management capabilities to life sciences companies that meet U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requirements. Open Text is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and last year was named the 2006 Microsoft Global ISV Partner of the Year.
According to Forquer, the new solution is targeted to all law firms that are in the process of reviewing their requirements and want an improved user experience with a matter-centric approach to managing content. Microsoft and Open Text will showcase the solution and publish a white paper on the integration at Open Text's LiveLinkUp 2007 user conference in October. The solution will be fully available in early 2008.
For more information on the Microsoft and Open Text relationship, go to www.opentext.com/2/strategic-partners/part-strat-microsoft.htm. For more information on Open Text's legal industry solutions, go to: www.opentext.com/2/sol-industry/sol-ind-legal.htm.
About Open Text
Open Text(TM) is the world's largest independent provider of Enterprise Content Management software. The Company's solutions manage information for all types of business, compliance and industry requirements in the world's largest companies, government agencies and professional service firms. Open Text supports approximately 46,000 customers and millions of users in 114 countries and 12 languages. For more information about Open Text, visit www.opentext.com.
Source: Open Text Corporation
CONTACT:
Rich Maganini
Open Text Corporation
(847) 267 9330, x4266
rmaganin@opentext.com
Michele Stevenson
Open Text Corporation
(519) 888-7111, x2594
mstevens@opentext.com
Brian Edwards
McKenzie Worldwide
(503) 577-4583
briane@mckenzieworldwide.com
