What's next for Open Text?

I'm assuming you all heard about Open Text's plans to buy Captaris. From a capture standpoint, this makes perfect sense, but Captaris is $125 million business with only $30-35 million coming from capture. Alan Pelz-Sharpe is one of my favorite ECM analysts and here's what he had to say about the acquisition. Like me, he questions what Open Text plans to do with the $80 million fax server software business it is acquiring. He also hints that it fits with Open Text's history of acquisition. We'll see. I'm not sure fax server is high-tech enough to fit with Open Text's business model. But we'll see.

Pelz-Sharpe also makes interestsing speculation about what will be next for Open Text. Will it be acqusition of an ECM competitor like Interwoven or Vignette? A good thought. Or perhaps, Open Text will be acquired by partnenr SAP - a scenario we think even more likely. However, if they are spurned by EMC, how about a reverse merger or something with Hyland Software? That sure would be an interesting way to create an ECM power that addresses both direct and channel sales and can span the market from top to bottom.

Ralph