SAP Expands Document Management Capabilities with Archiving and Document Access Solutions from Open Text

by Jason Loesche

SAP Resells Open Text's Livelink ECM to Help Customers Boost Efficiency of Business Processes by Securely Archiving Data and Documents

SAP AG and Open Text(TM) Corporation today announced a joint worldwide offering to help companies efficiently manage the growing amount of data and documents crucial to effective business operations. SAP is reselling solutions from Open Text, the largest independent provider of enterprise content management (ECM) software. Adding powerful capabilities for secure, long-term archiving, Open Text's solutions complement the existing document management capabilities of SAP(R) applications. This solution helps customers increase business process efficiency, reduce risks and ensure compliance with government regulations.

Based on Open Text's market-leading Livelink ECM solutions, SAP will resell applications marketed under the names "SAP Archiving by Open Text" and "SAP Document Access by Open Text." Available today, the archiving and document access applications are targeted toward the financial services industry as well as public sector organizations, healthcare companies and other service organizations.

Two Decades of Partnership

This global reseller agreement builds on two decades of partnership between SAP and Open Text. Open Text's Livelink ECM Suite for use with SAP applications is a mature and well-established offering deployed in more than 2,500 SAP customer sites around the world.

"GATX is in the midst of implementing Open Text's Livelink ECM, which was selected, in part, for its proven integration with SAP applications," said Yvonne Scott, CIO, GATX Corporation. "The solutions, now available directly from SAP, should help us to cost-effectively manage the growth of our data. The solutions from these two highly regarded companies are expected to maximize data security and integrity and improve system performance and availability while allowing us to address regulatory compliance. Once fully implemented, this will enable us to better focus our attention on other investments in our business."

Archiving and Document Solutions Incorporate Livelink ECM Components

Open Text's Livelink ECM solutions for use with SAP applications consists of two primary components that address data and document archiving and document access in an SAP application environment:

• SAP Archiving by Open Text incorporates the imaging, SAP data and document archiving components of Livelink ECM. It is a secure, cost-effective solution that stores data on optical media or compliant disk storage with logical to physical archive management. This helps to lower the cost and risk of meeting data retention and destruction requirements. Document archiving helps eliminate information silos and reduces the need for time-consuming regular mail or expensive express delivery services as well as the need for paper archives.
• SAP Document Access by Open Text incorporates the capabilities of the archiving solution and extends it with the ability to provide SAP applications with a process-oriented and application-spanning view of all business documents and data across SAP and non-SAP applications. A Web browser-based interface also allows occasional users to easily retrieve content.

"We have had a close relationship with SAP for many years and we look forward to engaging with SAP further to drive archiving and ECM solutions in the marketplace and help customers address the growing complexity of managing information and compliance demands," said John Wilkerson, executive vice president of Global Sales, Services and Support at Open Text. "We offer proven archiving and ECM solutions. At Open Text, we will continue to expand our offerings to include business and industry-specific solutions for managing enterprise content tightly integrated with SAP applications."

SAP Archiving by Open Text and SAP Document Access by Open Text can be purchased and supported directly from SAP.

"Our enhanced relationship with Open Text underscores our commitment to empower customers to take a holistic approach to Enterprise Content Management," said Tom Shirk, president, SAP Global Public Services. "The ease of use for data and documents is a key pillar in any document management initiative, and, in particular, in the services industries. Open Text products have proven their value throughout a long track record of success with SAP customers and provide solid capabilities which complement SAP applications."

Open Text is an SAP Software Partner with certified integrations and the companies have shared two decades of partnership and co-development. As a result of this cooperative relationship, Open Text, which acquired IXOS in 2003, is the market leader in document management, document archiving and data archiving for SAP solutions. Broad-based and industry solutions let enterprises create, access, manage and securely archive all content for SAP solutions -- both data and documents -- to address stringent requirements for risk reduction, operational efficiency and IT consolidation.