Alfresco vs OpenText

2022. OpenText acquires Micro Focus for $6B



ECM giant OpenText is acquiring Micro Focus for a total value of $6 billion. Micro Focus, a British company, has primarily expanded its business by purchasing legacy software companies such as Borland, Novell, and Cobol-IT. One of its most prominent agreements was a $8.8 billion partnership with HPE in 2016, focusing on a part of HPE's enterprise software portfolio, including the well-known Autonomy deal. While OpenText's content management roots do not directly align with most of Micro Focus' offerings, this acquisition seems to be driven by the desire to grow and expand rather than pursuing immediate synergy with the acquiring company.


2020. Hyland to acquire Alfresco



Hyland, a provider of content services, has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Alfresco, a leading open-source ECM platform. Founded in 2005 by John Newton (co-founder of Documentum) and John Powell (former COO of Business Objects), Alfresco has established itself as a prominent player in the open-source ECM space. Based in Boston, Alfresco specializes in developing a cloud-native digital business platform that offers content services solutions to connect, manage, and safeguard critical information for organizations. Following the completion of the transaction, the entire Alfresco business is expected to be integrated into Hyland Software, Inc. This acquisition aligns with Hyland's vision of becoming a global leader in content services, expanding its presence worldwide and welcoming additional customers, partners, and highly experienced employees. Incorporating Alfresco's solutions enriches Hyland's portfolio of content services offerings and opens up new avenues for collaboration with the open-source community, driving product innovation.


2017. OpenText acquired forensic security vendor Guidance Software



Forensic security and eDiscovery vendor Guidance Software has been acquired by content management company OpenText in a deal worth $240 million. OpenText has demonstrated a willingness to invest in strategic acquisitions to fill gaps in its portfolio, even if it means acquiring companies with overlapping functionality. A notable example is its acquisition of Documentum, an alternative enterprise content management firm, from EMC for $1.62 billion approximately a year ago. While this acquisition may introduce some overlapping functionality, it also grants OpenText access to new forensic tools—a domain previously unexplored by the company. According to Cheryl McKinnon, an analyst at Forrester Research specializing in the content management industry, this move expands OpenText's capabilities and expertise in forensics.


2016. Alfresco is available as a managed service on AWS



Alfresco, a renowned provider of enterprise content management (ECM) and business process management (BPM) software, has recently unveiled the early release of its platform as a managed service, now hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS). This development enables users to conveniently access the platform as a single-tenant managed service within an AWS Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) environment. Furthermore, Alfresco is taking steps to streamline cloud deployment for customers who self-manage their AWS infrastructure, making it more accessible and hassle-free.


2016. OpenText acquires Documentum for $1.62 billion



OpenText is set to purchase Dell EMC's enterprise content division, which includes Documentum, for a total of $1.62 billion. As per the agreement, OpenText will integrate the software, associated services, and employees of ECD into its operations. This acquisition comes shortly after Dell's official merger with EMC, where EMC's content management business was deemed incompatible. In 2003, EMC acquired Documentum for $1.7 billion, although it was widely known that EMC had been actively seeking a buyer for Documentum in recent years. With this acquisition, OpenText solidifies its position as a leading provider in Enterprise Information Management and now directly competes with IBM's FileNet.


2016. OpenText acquired Recommind



Just one week following the announcement of OpenText raising $600 million through the sale of senior debt notes to support future acquisitions, the company has made a significant investment of $163 million to acquire Recommind, a provider of e-discovery and information analytics solutions. Recommind offers a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform along with managed services, including Axcelerate for e-discovery review and analysis, Perceptiv for contract analytics, and Decisiv for enterprise-wide information access. OpenText officials have expressed that the addition of e-discovery capabilities will complement their existing enterprise information management (EIM) solutions. Furthermore, the acquisition of Recommind will enhance OpenText's proficiency in cloud services and analytics, expanding their overall expertise in these domains.


2016. Alfresco integrates its ECM and BPM



Alfresco has unveiled a significant integration between its enterprise content management (ECM) platform, Alfresco One, and its Business Process Management (BPM) platform, Activiti. This marks the culmination of years of concerted efforts to bring the two platforms closer together, effectively enhancing the functionality of both in managing business content and processes. With this announcement, Alfresco enters the competitive Process and Collaboration Management (PCM) market, providing enterprises with a comprehensive suite of offerings encompassing content management and content-driven processes. The integration seamlessly combines BPM, ECM, records management, and includes integrations with capture and e-signature vendors, delivering a holistic solution for enterprises in need of robust process and collaboration management capabilities.


2015. Alfresco enhanced integration of its ECM and BPM systems



Alfresco is enriching its ECM (Enterprise Content Management) and BPM (Business Process Management) platforms, namely Alfresco One and Activiti, through the introduction of new modules for analytics and media management, as well as enhanced BPM capabilities. These newly released components bring additional functionality to the platforms and foster closer integration between BPM and ECM. The enhancements build upon Alfresco's open-source BPM offering, which had already been adopted by many enterprises as a standalone BPM engine in their applications. Now, as an enterprise version, Activiti v1.0 offers seamless integration with Alfresco Share, Alfresco's collaborative tool. In addition, Alfresco has unveiled an Analytics Module, which can be integrated with any of the Alfresco products, providing valuable insights and reporting capabilities regarding content, processes, and events related to individuals.


2014. OpenText buys Big Data analytics provider Actuate for $330 Million



The global leader in Enterprise Content Management, OpenText, has completed the acquisition of Actuate, a prominent provider of Business Intelligence solutions. Actuate, renowned as "the BIRT company," specializes in Enterprise Business Intelligence and is closely associated with BIRT, which stands for "Business Intelligence Reporting Tools" and is an open-source project under the Eclipse Foundation. Actuate actively supports BIRT by offering the open-source IDE, while also developing BIRT iHub, a deployment platform that greatly enhances developer productivity when working on customer-facing applications. Additionally, Actuate's BIRT Analytics empowers users with self-service predictive analytics capabilities to improve customer engagement utilizing Big Data. Moreover, Actuate for CCM provides ECM architects with a seamless solution to transform, process, personalize, and archive high-volume content with ease.


2014. Alfresco raises $45M to fight with EMC and Microsoft



UK-based Alfresco, a startup specializing in open-source enterprise content management, has secured Series D funding of $45 million. This investment exceeds the cumulative amount raised in all of its previous funding rounds combined. Alfresco is in competition with established services like EMC Documentum and Microsoft SharePoint, providing solutions for large organizations to effectively manage their diverse document storage across both cloud and on-premises environments. It offers features such as version control and compliance requirements across various devices, including mobile and PC. With the new funding, Alfresco plans to accelerate its business operations by enhancing sales and marketing efforts and expanding its range of cloud-based services. This expansion may result in direct competition with popular platforms such as Dropbox, Box, and Huddle.