Open Text Puts RedDot to Enterprise 2.0 Use

Open Text has announced today the release of "next generation" Web Solutions. The fancy name is, in essence, a new release of the company’s Web CMS child -- RedDot. It’s a name change and a total rebranding makeover. With all the underlying RedDot WCM technology still in the backbone, it is now called Web Solutions. The focus of this new release is on intranets, extranets, Enterprise 2.0 solutions and Web 2.0 tools that come armed with greater security and control over social media initiatives. We had an opportunity to chat with Stefanie Lightman, VP of Marketing at Open Text, to get the scoop on the new offering.

Open Text Web Solutions Family

Open Text aims to target the entire organizational ecosystem with the new release. There is a total of six separate solutions tailored for different organizational content management objectives. Many organizations struggle to manage content across various environments, such as SAP or MOSS. Open Text looks to address these challenges by offering something for everyone.

Web Solutions for Intranets

By being able to leverage an existing infrastructure, customers can deliver personalized experiences to their employees, while ensuring security and 2.0-friendliness.

Personalized Intranet Page in Open Text Web Solutions

Web Solutions for Multi-Sites

With such capabilities as corporate compliance and translation workflow, this module offers a multilingual interface, integrations with third-party applications like SDL Trados, split-screen translation interfaces and the ability to share content from parent to child sites in an easier fashion. Pure content editing capabilities like red-lining and previewing to compare two language versions were also implemented, as Lightman notes.

Web Solutions for Enterprise 2.0

In this solution the focus is on user experiences, more efficient content sharing across social environments and enhanced functionality with blogs, wikis, forums and other Web 2.0 gadgets. Security and brand compliance is also part of the package.

Web Solutions for SAP

It is NetWeaver-certified and includes SAP TREX, SAP KM and SAP iView integrations.

Web Solutions for Microsoft

Just like many of Open Text/RedDot competitors, the company is getting cozy with Microsoft technologies (again) and offers integration for SharePoint 2003 and SharePoint 2007.

Web Solutions for Livelink

By providing integration with Livelink 9.5 and Livelink 9.7, it may be easier to leverage content from customers’ Livelink environments and ensure better management of content across platforms and make it easier to deploy Content Management platforms on top of those repositories.

Web Solutions Suite

Open Text Web Solutions comes in a bundle of four core capabilities in addition to the Web CMS foundation:

Experience Services

From custom portals to role-based applications, deliver content to any target, channel, device or audience with context and personalization at its heart.

Interactive Services

Building and managing massive Web sites can be a daunting task. Open Text Web Solutions leverage tools to create, manage, localize and design a Web experience with superior ease of use and to deploy safe Web 2.0 applications for social interaction with security rights and compliance.

Optimization Services

Continuous improvement is vital to the success of Web initiatives. Customers can gain insights from analytics dashboards and search engine optimization to offer streamlined processes to publish content from anywhere to anywhere.

Library Services

Basic content services for document collaboration let enterprises leverage existing libraries and repositories, including Microsoft SharePoint, eDocs, Livelink, Artesia and SAP. This addition goes nicely with Open Text being supportive of the CMIS spec that aims to ensure better communication among content management applications and content repositories, among other objectives.

Product Updates

* Web Components: blogs, wikis, forums, tagging, voting * Safe Enterprise 2.0 * Artesia Digital Asset Management * Translation workflow to third-party translation systems * Content distribution to multiple sites * Aggregation of content * Web Controls for Visual Studio * Updated third-party certifications * Graphical reporting tool * Telerik text editor * Page management updates

Web Solutions Differentiator

Aside from the traditional release-to-release enhancements and updates, Lightman noted that there are quite a few new 2.0-oriented features targeted at today’s organizations that may be excited about blogs, comments and forums, but are simply terrified that something bad would be posted on their Intranet (or, even worse) a public-facing site. Open Text comes to rescue here and lends its heavy-security and heavy-compliance expertise based on years of experience in the field. In order to help these organizations protect business valuables, Open Text utilizes its enterprise-level Web compliance manager capabilities in the Web CMS environment. Both human and non-human moderation is possible to ensure pre- and post-publish control related to branding and industry compliances. Wikis, tag clouds, corporate Facebook/Linkedin capabilities -- anything your heart desires is promised in the new solution by Open Text.

Social Networking Features of Open Text Web Solutions

Pricing and Availability

The new release, currently in the last stages of QA, is due at the end of the year. Customers currently running older versions of the product will be able to upgrade as usual, while new customers will get all the bells and whistles upon signing a contract. Oh, speaking of contracts… According to Lightman, the pricing will not change for the new product. The licensing structure will remain the same as well. The product will be sold on the standard concurrent user, server-based model starting at an average sales price of US$ 125K. As previously, Live Server with its delivery of personalized content capabilities will be licensed separately.

Final Thoughts

In the light of recent opinions in the industry regarding the seemingly imminent implosion of Web 2.0 technologies, is Open text too late to the party? As far as Enterprise 2.0 goes, the majority of organizations are still hesitant to fully embrace 2.0 technologies. It may be due to the fear of the new, the lack of perfectly-fitted solutions or the risk of leaking sensitive information behind the firewall. All of these factors (and who knows what else) can contribute to slow adoption rates. Speculations aside, let’s wait and see if the re-incarnated Web CMS product will be successful on the market. With a slew of Web 2.0 features and stringent control capabilities, it may have a chance. Alternatively, putting that much breathing space restriction on the free-spirited Web 2.0 may result in it morphing into something else, something completely different. Interesting times…