OpenText Release 16 EP1 & Q1 Fiscal Year 2017 Results
OpenText, the Waterloo, Ontario-based enterprise information management provider, announced a comprehensive, integrated digital information platform called Release 16 Enhancement Pack (EP1). It’s designed to allow customers to digitize any business process and manage information workflows across the digital enterprise.
"OpenText Release 16 delivers complete and integrated EIM that enables Engagement to Insight, allowing customers to transform their businesses into digital businesses," said Mark J. Barrenechea, OpenText CEO and CTO. "With newly acquired products from HP Inc. and Recommind, OpenText continues to extend its EIM platform and the value of customer information via purpose-built industry solutions. At the end of the day, all businesses are information businesses, and OpenText Release 16 helps customers to unlock the value of their information."
What are the Enhancements?
Release 16 Enhancement Pack (EP1) enables organizations to amplify customer engagements through personalized communications and engaging digital experiences. One of the main purposes of the new enhancements is to enable organizations to digitize the entire customer journey by integrating information flow from engagement through to insight. Ultimately, it will give businesses a better understanding of the customer, partner or business process. Also, its EIM platform, which is optimized for the OpenText Cloud, now provides a flexible hybrid strategy to offer either on-premises or cloud deployments to meet a customer's IT structure, budget, and requirements.
The key product enhancement though, is a deeper ecosystem integration as EP1 brings new Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and Extended ECM Cloud editions, enabling integration with other leading vendor solutions. According to the company, the OpenText Extended ECM platform bridges information silos and enhances information flow for improved process productivity, through a responsive UI, deep API integration, and built-in analytics capabilities.
One of the important integration enhancements is OpenText Extended ECM for Salesforce, which connects the Salesforce cloud to the OpenText Extended ECM Platform in order to provide a single, united view across structured and unstructured data sources, directly within the Salesforce user interface. However, Salesforce is not the only new vendors OpenText released an integration for. SAP SuccessFactors Employee Content Management by OpenText is another enhancement to provide an accelerated process for collaborating and storing digitized employee files, so HR business partners can focus on strategic activities such as recruiting and talent management. The solution is supported by OpenText's global cloud infrastructure. You can watch the demo of the Extended ECM for Procurement here.
Just like almost every other large software vendor, OpenText has captivated more and more unstructured data analytics, machine learning, and interactive visualizations in recent years. Therefore, with the new enhancements, it released a new OpenText Discovery Suite. According to OpenText, the platform brings discovery analytics to enterprise content, to service key documents, contract terms, and personnel with critical early insights in order to give business a better understanding of litigation, investigations, due diligence, compliance, and decision-making.
From A usage Perspective
"The new enhancements in OpenText Release 16 made it an easy decision for us to upgrade," said Markos C. Dolopikos, principal officer, IT Department at Black Sea Trade & Development Bank. "The new simple and responsive user interface with role-based views provides a personalized experience which will increase user adoption across our organization. Furthermore, document-centric workflows will enhance internal collaboration and simplify business process automation."
"The new user interface and custom search have proved a big hit with users, and with Release 16 we have, in terms of corporate search, at last, found the Holy Grail," commented Rick Quarmby, Principal Knowledge Management Advisor for Hydro Tasmania. "OpenText's Extended ECM platform offers significant benefits to our organization and an end to any confusion about where to store asset related information. It's now becoming crystal clear to the users, and that's a huge win for our business."
"The investment and focus OpenText is putting on its Customer Experience Management solutions is very exciting," said Mark Fassbender, global head of Web Optimization at Lexis Nexis. "Marketers today invest a lot of time and effort in trying to understand the customer journey from the first contact through to renewal and retention. By connecting reporting and insights from each key stage of the customer journey together in an integrated solution, OpenText allows for a better understanding of what content works best for each channel and customer group across the whole customer lifecycle, which is pretty awesome."
Other enhancements include expanded business and vertical solutions, OpenText Extended ECM for Government, OpenText Fax2Mail for Healthcare, OpenText Engineering Document Management, OpenText Process Suite, and Trading Grid Analytics.
First Quarter Fiscal Year 2017
During the OpenText Enterprise World 2016 event, Barrenechea stressed that Release 16, EP Series, their enhancement packs, Magellan- the cognitive platform-, and their acquisitions would help OpenText grow its market share in Fiscal 2017. And today, the company announced its financial results for the first quarter ending September 30, 2016. Total revenue grew by 14%, and recurring revenue grew by 14%, supporting an adjusted operating margin of approximately 31%.
"OpenText delivered nearly half a billion dollars in quarterly revenues, double-digit cloud and license performance, our fastest start to a fiscal year in the company's history,” said OpenText CEO and CTO, Mark J. Barrenechea. He also touched upon the acquisition of Dell-EMC's Enterprise Content Division (ECD Business) - including Documentum- which is expected to close in early next year: “The acquisition of Dell-EMC's ECD Business is progressing according to plan and we expect to close the transaction within an estimated 75 days. Once closed, we expect to strengthen our recurring revenues and correspondingly increase cash flow generation. We are excited about the opportunities which ECD Business brings, and I look forward to welcoming our new customers, employees, and partners to OpenText."
Last Tuesday, as CMS-Connected reported, the Dell EMC Enterprise Content Division (ECD) made a few announcements during its customer event Momentum, in Barcelona. ECD introduced the Dell EMC LEAP Platform and announced the availability of Documentum 7.3. All these new capabilities will benefit OpenText as soon as the deal is closed. Meanwhile, OpenText will keep upgrading the components of its suite just like they did with the announcement of Release 16 Enhancement Pack (EP1). From the content management perspective, I believe that 2017 will mark a milestone in OpenText’s history. As events unfold we will cover all the latest news here, at CMS-connected.
Venus Tamturk
Venus is the Media Reporter for CMS-Connected, with one of her tasks to write thorough articles by creating the most up-to-date and engaging content using B2B digital marketing. She enjoys increasing brand equity and conversion through the strategic use of social media channels and integrated media marketing plans.