You might try opentext.com for the official version.
OpenText is really two companies merged into one. The original OpenText, from Waterloo, was a internet search engine company like Alta Vista, Yahoo, Excite, etc. When they went public, they merged with Odesta from Chicago. Odesta's product was client/server based Document Management/Workflow/Project software like Documentum (Document Management) and Lotus Notes (Workflow/Project). Until the latest release of Livelink, Odesta bundled their software with Verity's search engine which allowed users to search documents by phrases and key words, exactly what OpenText did for the internet. OpenText also provided support for moving the client/server application to a web (intranet) product which Odesta had already started to do. (Client/Server is where the software resides on the PC and the data resides on a server, usually a powerful Unix or Windows NT machine running a relational database like Oracle, Informix, or Sybase.)
The software they provide lets an Enterprise company (thousands of employees) store their documents (Word, Excel, etc.) in a central area that everyone can get to. Users can search for the documents, check them in and out, keep track of versions, etc. The documents can also be part of workflow which automatically routes the document to people for approval, review, etc. The project part of the software is similar to this web page in that people with a common interest or project can create threads, assign tasks, create workflows, etc.
When you are talking about thousand of users and thousands of documents, the cost savings to a company is very large. The fact that the software runs on an intranet is even better because all the user needs is a web browser - you don't worry if he has a Mac, PC, Unix, OS/2 etc., training costs are low, and maintenance is very cheap. Plus, if you add in customers or suppliers who may need to see documents or be part of a workflow, you just give them a URL address and they have access, which is a very inexpensive solution.
Then they have the web search products which let companies create indexes on their own intranet or on the World Wide Web using the Spider product. These products let users customize what and where the software indexes. They also sell advertising on their WWW search page.
They also provide consulting services for customizing their software to fit the specific needs of a customer. |
