Open Text Corporation, a global ECM player that helps organizations manage and gain the true value of their business content, has acquired StreamServe Inc., a provider of business communication solutions. The transaction is valued at approximately $71 million, subject to customary purchase price and holdback adjustments.

Industry experts opined that the acquisition will add complementary document output and customer communication management software to the Open Text ECM Suite, while enhancing Open Text's SAP (News - Alert) partnership and extending its reach in the Nordic market.

Officials with StreamServe said that the company offers enterprise business communication solutions that help organizations process and deliver highly personalized documents in any paper or electronic format.

Company officials claimed that the company's powerful solutions enhance the customer interaction capabilities of the Open Text ECM Suite by enabling the automation of business processes for B2B and B2C markets, including financial services, the public sector, telecommunications and utilities.

According to company officials, designed to address the "last mile" of communication between an organization and its customers, StreamServe's solutions excel at improving and expanding business relationships.

With StreamServe's software, companies can automatically create documents through rules-based dynamic assembly and present them to customers, partners, and suppliers, in multiple formats and through whichever channel they prefer.

StreamServe offers solutions that scale across a company's document-driven business processes.

Company officials said that the company's solutions are designed for easy integration with ERP and supply-chain systems and applications, including SAP. Open Text and SAP have a 20-year partner relationship, and SAP resells a wide range of Open Text ECM solutions. Like Open Text, StreamServe has an established reseller partnership with SAP making it a natural fit with Open Text's SAP partner strategy.

"From both a technology and partnership standpoint, StreamServe is a complementary fit for Open Text," said John Shackleton, president and chief executive officer of Open Text, in a statement.

Shackleton said that StreamServe brings innovative new technology to the ECM Suite, offering products that automate and personalize customer communication processes, while integrating this functionality with key Open Text ECM solutions.

Open Text, which has a long history of successfully supporting acquired products and services, will continue to support StreamServe's products and installed base. Open Text will also integrate StreamServe's technology with the Open Text ECM Suite.

"As part of Open Text, we can offer our customers even greater value with an expanded solutions portfolio and the support of a much larger ECM company," said Dennis Ladd, president and chief executive officer of StreamServe.

"Together we remain committed to our customers, and we're excited about the opportunities and new solutions we ll be able to deliver as part of the Open Text team," said Ladd.

In related news, as TMCnet reported, managing content and sharing it across the enterprise can be a challenge no matter how progressive the technology of the platform. Even in an all-IP environment, the right tools still have to be in place to assure documents can be shared and organized in a secure and seamless manner. This was a challenge for Dynegy, a wholesale provider of power, capacity and ancillary services to utilities, cooperatives, municipalities and other energy companies. By automating the process through the Open Text Enterprise Content Management (ECM) Suite, the company was able to see dramatic improvements in efficiency and new levels of productivity.