1. Enterprise Content Management
Company to Reach More Customers
with Cloud Computing
Partner: Open Text Corporation “By integrating our products with
Web Site: www.opentext.com
Partner Size: 2,800 employees
Azure, every organization can now
Country or Region: United States, afford to run an enterprise-class
Canada, EMEA, APAC
Industry: Professional services―
electronic records management
Software engineering solution without the burden of an up-
Partner Profile
front capital investment in storage
Based in Chicago, Illinois, and hardware.”
Waterloo, Ontario, Open Text
Adrian Studer, Technical Alliance Manager, Open Text Corporation
Corporation is a leading global
enterprise content
management company. Open Open Text Corporation, a global leader in enterprise content
Text has 2,800 employees and
approximately 46,000
management, realized that customers increasingly demand more
customers. flexible and affordable ways of managing their electronic archiving
Software and Services
environments. The company is integrating its software with the Azure™
 Software-Plus-Services Services Platform—a cloud-computing platform from Microsoft―to
− Azure Services Platform
− Windows Azure
provide a virtual storage service. This will speed implementation,
− Microsoft .NET Services improve business agility, and make enterprise-class archiving and
− Microsoft SQL Services
 Technologies
records management more affordable to customers.
− Microsoft .NET Framework
For more information on the
Azure Services Platform, please
visit www.azure.com

2. Business Needs dedicated hosting services, we
Open Text Corporation, a pioneer wanted to extend our offerings
in Internet search engine with a highly flexible model
technology, is a leading provider where customers would be able
of enterprise content to extend their capacity as
management (ECM) solutions. needed without having to make
The company was founded in predefined volumetric
1991 in Waterloo in the Canadian commitments.”
province of Ontario.
To make its archiving offering
Managing and archiving accessible to more customers,
enterprise content is a business Open Text needed to find ways
necessity, but it is also a to reduce implementation
regulatory requirement for many complexity and capital
organizations. To cope with the expenditure. Instead of requiring
complexity of long-term storage, customers to install and
corporations in many industries configure storage infrastructure
use Open Text Enterprise Library on premise, the company
Services content management wanted to offer an alternative.
software to centrally manage
critical data. Most of those Solution
companies are large enterprises Open Text decided to augment
that can afford to maintain data its approach to solutions
centers and storage hardware. implementation. By integrating its
archiving software with a
However, Open Text realized virtualized storage service, it will
that many midsize and small offer customers a faster, less
corporate companies are capital-intensive route to building
reluctant to make an up-front a long-term archiving solution.
investment in costly storage Open Text evaluated several
infrastructure and do not have cloud-computing services, but
the IT skills needed to manage it. decided that most services
Open Text saw an opportunity to lacked the widespread
help a new set of customers marketplace support required to
meet their ECM needs, so it serve its customers.
considered hosting storage
infrastructure itself and offering a As an independent software
software-plus-services option. vendor (ISV) that won the
However, “that would have Microsoft® Global ISV of the Year
simply moved the IT complexity Award in 2006, Open Text pays
from our customers to us,” says close attention to new projects
Adrian Studer, Technical Alliance at Microsoft. When it learned that
Manager at Open Text. Microsoft would release a cloud-
“Although Open Text offers computing solution in 2008,
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published October 2008

3. Open Text decided to become an solution. Azure provides strong solution without the burden of an
early adopter. “We were service level agreements for up-front capital investment in
immediately very interested,” security that complement the storage hardware.”
says Studer. “It’s not just an encryption capabilities and other
online operating system; it has protective features that Open Faster solutions development. Open
many other pieces we found Text builds into its software. Text anticipates that integrating
interesting.” its enterprise applications with
The company will begin piloting Azure will help its customers
The Azure™ Services Platform from its Azure-based storage offering design and implement solutions
Microsoft provides an Internet- in 2009. It expects that the first faster. Because Azure provides
based operating system, online customers will be midsize the infrastructure and supports
developer tools, and services organizations that want to take using familiar development tools
such as online file storage, a advantage of the solution’s such as the .NET Framework,
distributed database, access affordability, with larger developers can take advantage
control, and social-networking enterprises following their lead of their existing programming
Web services. Open Text decided as data volume and storage knowledge instead of learning
to integrate the online file storage costs escalate. new technologies. “Now
and distributed database services software developers won’t have
with Intelligent Storage Benefits to spend as much time dealing
Management, the foundation of its By using Azure, Open Text can with infrastructure when
Enterprise Library Services offer customers a more flexible developing ECM solutions,” says
software stack. It developed a and less capital-intensive Studer. “By using Azure,
proof of concept in August 2008 approach to ECM and electronic customers can redeploy
and began testing its new solution archiving. The company will also resources to focus on solution
in September. Studer says, “We be able to better meet customer development.”
were able to implement this very needs and adapt to changes in
quickly, because Azure is based the software industry. Better business agility. For Open Text,
on the Windows Server® platform offering a software-plus-services
and tightly integrated with the Reduced costs, more flexibility. By using storage solution through Azure is
Microsoft .NET Framework.” Web services available through only the beginning. It expects
Azure to build a software-plus- that more companies will move
The new service will work with the services storage solution, Open away from the limitations of
existing products that Open Text Text can reduce the cost of expensive infrastructure
offers. Studer says the only implementing its ECM products. investments and will demand
difference its customers will After implementation, customers alternatives from Open Text and
notice is another storage option. can use the dynamically scaling other ISVs. “Azure makes our
“It’s the same experience for services platform to easily add offerings to our clients much
administrators except that they storage capacity as business more flexible,” says Studer.
can now choose between saving grows. As a result, it will be “We are not about selling
content on Azure as well as on easier for more companies to software licenses; we are about
storage devices. End users do not manage critical records. Studer solving customers’ problems.
even see a difference between says, “By integrating our Software-plus-services is an
the two options.” products with Azure, every interesting alternative that helps
organization can now afford to our clients meet critical business
Open Text is also confident in the run an enterprise-class requirements. We want to be
security of its cloud-based electronic records management part of the software-plus-
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published October 2008

4. services wave early on—not just
for the short term, but for the long
term, because it will change the
face of the software industry.”
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published October 2008