OpenText Completes Acquisition of BPM Leader Metastorm Inc.

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Feb 18, 2011, 08:30 ET

Move into the BPM Market Adds to its Microsoft Solutions Portfolio, Brings Business Process Analysis and Enterprise Architecture Capabilities

WATERLOO, ON, Feb. 18 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - OpenText (NASDAQ: OTEX, TSX: OTC) said today it has completed its acquisition of global Business Process Management (BPM) leader Metastorm, adding complementary software solutions in the fast-growing BPM market. Metastorm is a key addition to OpenText's Microsoft partner strategy and will help the company create a new generation of process improvement solutions that demand a combination of content and process management capabilities.

"With Metastorm, OpenText moves into the BPM market allowing customers to purchase leading solutions in Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and BPM from a single vendor which ultimately helps them improve their business in the most comprehensive way," said John Shackleton, Chief Executive Officer at OpenText. "We see a lot of customer demand for solutions involving content and process improvement and Metastorm is the perfect fit, presenting a tremendous opportunity for OpenText."

The BPM market has been a fast-growing segment of the software industry over the last few years. According to Gartner, the BPM market was $1.9 billion in 2009, growing 15 percent that year. Last fall, Metastorm announced that it was positioned as a leader in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Business Process Management Suites, published October 18, 2010.

Baltimore, Maryland-based Metastorm is known for its leadership in BPM, but also provides Business Process Analysis (BPA) and Enterprise Architecture (EA) software—all will play a role in OpenText's product plans. Just like BPM, Metastorm's BPA and EA capabilities are complementary to OpenText's and bring together comprehensive views of an organization—from the strategy and goals that drive the business, to the day-to-day systems, processes and people that run it, to the content needed to make the best business decisions. Metastorm is a leader in both BPA and EA as recognized by Gartner in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Business Process Analysis Tools, published February 22, 2010 and the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Architecture Tools, published October 28, 2010.

BPM and ECM
Many processes involve content and thus require content management. With Metastorm, OpenText can now address any type of business process, whether the focus is content-centricity or process centricity. OpenText's strategy is to add to existing solutions with new, uniquely powerful case management solutions used in areas such as customer on-boarding or claims processing, where the effective delivery of knowledge and content are a critical part of the overall business process.

"The demands for these solutions are in major industries such as financial services and insurance, energy, government, life sciences and healthcare, and that's where we see the opportunity," said Shackleton. "Metastorm brings an experienced team of employees and a global footprint to help us deliver solutions worldwide."

Strategic Fit with Microsoft
A key strategic benefit of the acquisition is that Metastorm's BPM solutions integrate with the Microsoft environment and in particular with Microsoft SharePoint. OpenText is a leader today in providing ECM solutions that integrate with SharePoint and Microsoft Office. For SharePoint, OpenText offers compliance and content lifecycle management solutions that help customers centralize the management of their SharePoint sites across the enterprise. Together, the combined companies can provide a powerful mix of process and content management solutions that integrate with Microsoft, continuing to add to OpenText's position as a leading Microsoft partner and a key provider of solutions that support and extend SharePoint.

Metastorm is the third major announcement in the last few months that shows OpenText is making major strides in its ecosystem strategy to build strong partner relationships with the three largest enterprise software vendors—Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP. The goal is to deliver solutions that help customers manage content across of all their key enterprise systems. In October, OpenText acquired StreamServe, a provider of customer communications solutions and a major partner to SAP (http://www.opentext.com/2/global/press-release-details.html?id=2422). In November, Oracle and OpenText announced an agreement in which OpenText will create archiving, compliance and eDiscovery solutions for Oracle technology (http://www.opentext.com/2/global/press-release-details.html?id=2426).

"OpenText presents a great new opportunity for our customers and our team," said Robert Farrell, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Metastorm. "We'll continue to offer our customers Metastorm's leading solutions, and add even greater value with an expanded solutions portfolio and the support of a much larger ECM company."

To find out more, listen to an OpenText News Podcast about the acquisition released today.

Follow OpenText on Twitter @OpenText.

About OpenText
OpenText, a global ECM leader, helps organizations manage and gain the true value of their business content. OpenText brings two decades of expertise supporting 100 million users in 114 countries. Working with our customers and partners, we bring together leading Content Experts™ to help organizations capture and preserve corporate memory, increase brand equity, automate processes, mitigate risk, manage compliance and improve competitiveness. For more information, visit www.opentext.com.

Certain statements in this press release may contain words considered forward-looking statements or information under applicable securities laws. These statements are based on Open Text's current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections about the operating environment, economies and markets in which the company operates. These statements are subject to important assumptions, risks and uncertainties that are difficult to predict, and the actual outcome may be materially different. Open Text's assumptions, although considered reasonable by the company at the date of this press release, may prove to be inaccurate and consequently its actual results could differ materially from the expectations set out herein. For additional information with respect to risks and other factors which could occur, see Open Text's Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and other securities filings with the SEC and other securities regulators. Unless otherwise required by applicable securities laws, Open Text disclaims any intention or obligations to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

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