Prepress
Canadian Federal Government Renews Contract With Open Text to Provide a Foundation for Government 2.0 Initiatives
Wednesday 28. May 2008 - Multi-Year Contract Expanded into All Levels of Canadian Federal Government, Including Departments, Agencies and Crown Corporations
Open Text Corporation (NASDAQ: OTEX, TSX: OTC), a global leader in enterprise content management (ECM), today announced that the Canadian Federal Government has renewed a seven-year maintenance contract with Open Text, Canadas largest software company, for a maximum of 250,000 users. The agreement extends Open Texts broad range of ECM capabilities to all federal government departments, agencies and crown corporations, and will provide the foundation for the governments 2.0 strategy.
Already in use in 58 government departments across the country, the Canadian Federal Governments Open Text ECM solution provides the functionality to capture, manage, store, process, preserve, protect and retrieve document-based information. Open Text will provide advanced solutions such as document and records management, business process management (BPM), business intelligence software and its market-leading Microsoft Office SharePoint Server integration.
The contract will also enable the Canadian Federal Government to push its implementation to the next level by bringing all departments, agencies and crown corporations into the mix, and also by incorporating key 2.0 capabilities, such as wikis, forums, blogs, tagging, moderation, communities and chat, to help improve worker collaboration and the way information is managed.
“Governments need to manage their knowledge resources as a valued enterprise-wide strategic business resource. Citizens and government employees require access to the content they need, when they need it, and with confidence in the quality, completeness and validity of the information,” said John Shackleton, President and Chief Executive Officer of Open Text. “Open Texts government solutions will continue to provide a common infrastructure for content to be shared for multiple purposes, helping to make the Canadian Federal Government more efficient, transparent, and responsive to its citizens.”
Exploring Web 2.0 in Government
When it comes to the way information is used and shared, government agencies face daunting challenges, including preserving institutional memory in the face of a growing retirement wave and managing the acceleration of e-government initiatives. To help, some public-sector agencies have begun piloting Web 2.0 technologies to create a more efficient and interactive workplace.
Web 2.0 technologies can help government departments, agencies and crown corporations improve and extend work processes. For example, in the area of policy development, Internet-based tools are essential for interacting with and gathering ideas from involved interest groups. For the government worker, forums, wikis, and blogs can be used in a variety of ways to provide employees with a platform to exchange and manage information.
Open Texts broad government product portfolio and domain expertise is the leading choice of public sector institutions worldwide. These products are fully compliant with international records management standards and help agencies better manage records and other knowledge assets, maximize productivity, and improve information access. Open Texts Web 2.0 solutions are based on its market leading Web Content Management offering and powerful collaboration and productivity tools. Together these solutions address collaboration and social computing requirements behind the firewall as a natural extension of customers current ECM initiatives as well as Web 2.0 enablement of public Websites, intranets and extranets.
Open Texts public sector business continues to build upon the companys already strong foundation of solutions, partnerships and strategic relationships. Open Text offers solutions such as correspondence management, suspense tracking, records and email management, case management and contract management which meet specific needs of governments across local, regional and federal markets.