Open Text and an Interesting Assertion
June 7, 2010
Open Text is ramping up its PR blitz in the social media space. We were chatting about a new content client yesterday (June 5, 2010). In that meeting, a person said, “Look at this. Open Text is in the corporate social media business.” I noted the url and took a closer look this morning. The document carried a very MBA type of assertion. Not bad for a company located in Waterloo, Ontario, where search and mobile devices are quite the rage. The title: “Open Text: Open Text Expands Social Media Offerings to Help Businesses Drive Bottom Line Results”.
For me, the one key passage was:
Now, Open Text leads the way for social media to be successfully deployed across the enterprise in a more secure environment. We are focused on helping customers realize practical and measurable business benefits such as faster time to market, higher customer retention or greater team productivity, while helping to reduce compliance, security and privacy risks. To support its customers as they seek to take advantage of the early-days social media explosion, Open Text stepped up quickly by adding blogs, wikis and other native Web 2.0 capabilities to the Open Text ECM Suite in 2008. Open Text, leveraging its strength in information governance, also took the lead in allowing customers to apply regulatory and legal rules to user-generated content. Then, last year, Open Text announced a completely new solution that lets companies create social workplaces for internal use cases, followed by the social media capabilities for marketing and external audiences from the acquisition of Vignette. Now, Open Text is evolving this foundation with a range of enhancements and new social media capabilities as part of the Open Text ECM Suite, building on a core strategy to apply social media technologies to pressing business challenges. Open Text enables companies to apply social media capabilities to drive marketing effectiveness, as well as customer support, sales and consulting, and strategic client engagement, among many others.
Then this caught my attention:
Open Text helps companies drive productivity within the enterprise with social media solutions that let users create profiles, follow co-workers and generate news feeds, or collaborate on projects. This dramatically improves information sharing and captures corporate knowledge, while reducing dependence on email. With the new and enhanced capabilities announced today, careful attention was paid to ease of use for business users and application to real business challenges, along with continued full support for Open Texts core competence in information governance and control. Expanded and enhanced offerings include: Open Text Social Communities Formerly Vignette Community Applications and Services, Open Text Social Communities is an enterprise social media solution that empowers organizations to engage with their customers, employees, and partners. As part of a broader marketing and CRM strategy, social media can give companies greater market insight, improved market engagement and, more importantly, significant improvements in customer satisfaction and retention.
This is an excellent example of how a company with roots in SGML databases, command line searching, and enterprise collaboration has embraced social media. I find the inclusion of Vignette, a content management system which can be quite a challenge to get up and humming like my late, dear grandmother’s treadle Singer sewing machine fascinating.
If there is a faux enterprise software niche, I would be among the first to nominate vendors of content management systems. When the Web became the rage, some entrepreneurs built systems to allow non coders to create a Web page. Over the years, the mess that some of these systems generate became a breeding ground for azure chip consultants. Not since Microsoft’s COM and DCOM has so much consulting work flowered.
Open Text has a number of search and content processing systems. These include the Tim Bray SGML engine, BASIS, BRS Search, the Nstein system, aging Fulcrum, and somewhere within the company the Tuxedo Web search system. Open Text has acquired content management systems and ventured into collaboration, records management, eDiscovery, and allied fields. Open Text even has multiple content management systems, including the RedDot system which is a challenge to make run like a jack rabbit.
Therefore, it comes as no surprise that Open Text is in the social media business as well. I am in favor of these approach to growth. Other firms with roots in search have worked like dogs to find ways to solve enterprise information challenges and build sustainable revenue streams. In fact, I think Open Text may be one of the most successful search and content processing companies. Other firms are now following the Open Text approach to growth.
Back to social media.
I know the use of network technology to communicate with “friends” is hot. My concern is that social media, like using the Internet to make a voice call, is not particularly new. Will SMS replace a face to face meeting, an email with an attachment, or a voice call. Nah. Social media is a supplement and, in the case of marketing applications, a method that is cheaper than printing a brochure and surface mailing it to a prospects.
Open Text as a social media force? Maybe. Microsoft, IBM, Google, and even the puffing SAP want a piece of the action. My view is that most organizations are struggling to pay their bills each month. If Open Text can make that task easier, the company could have a winner. For more about Open Text Social Communities, the company has a subsite, webinars, and solution sheets.
Stephen E Arnold, June 7, 2010
Freebie
Comments
One Response to “Open Text and an Interesting Assertion”
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
Social media is a communication tool, and is only as valuable as how you use it. Open Text is focusing on the goals, not the means – marketing effectiveness and organizational effectiveness – not just a list of features, but a useful approach.
Here is a three minute demo of our organizational effectiveness solution (social collaboration)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHYdjnZOUqI
I’d love to hear if your thoughts on this change at all after viewing.