Open Text's Hummingbird plans take flight

Purchase will take front-end role

Open Text will unfurl its roadmap in November for integrating its recent enterprise content management (ECM) purchases with the acquired Hummingbird taking on the front-end role in products emerging from the first half of next year.

A formal plan will be announced at the LiveLinkUp user conference in Phoenix, Arizona next month but at the Storage Expo exhibition in London on 18 October, Open Text gave some broad outlines of forthcoming lines.

“We want to unite the robustness of the Open Text back-end with the unique user experience of Hummingbird,” said Kirk Roberts, Open Text vice-president of products.

“The nice thing about the Hummingbird architecture is that it’s open and designed to be repository-neutral.”

Open Text also plans a significant architectural change that will see it deliver functionality through web services, and will integrate with Microsoft SharePoint to create a shared archiving function that will let Open Text’s flagship product LiveLink “enterprise enable” SharePoint, Roberts said.

IBM’s just-closed acquisition of FileNet creates an ECM giant that dwarfs even the newly bulked-up Open Text while giants such as Oracle have also been stepping up their ECM capabilities. However, Open Text claimed its neutrality could help it.

“Most large ECM customers have a combination of programs from major software players and they need a Switzerland to make that content available to end users,” Roberts said.

Red Dot Solutions, acquired through another recent purchase, and Hummingbird Connectivity brands will continue to operate for web content management and legacy network connectivity respectively.