07/03/2008

Open Text Corporation announced the acquisition of substantially all of the assets of Spicer Corporation (a privately held company) relating to its division that specializes in file format viewer solutions for desktop applications, integrated business process management (BPM) systems, and reprographics.

ebizQ received the following:

Approximately 30 employees from this Spicer division will be joining Open Text, most of whom are based in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, located nearby Open Text’s corporate headquarters. Open Text purchased the assets for approximately $12 million effective July 1, 2008. It is currently anticipated that the financial terms and future impact of the acquisition will not have a material effect on future financial results of Open Text.

“This acquisition will complement and extend Open Text’s existing ECM Suite, providing flexible document viewing options and enhanced document security functionality,” said John Shackleton, President and CEO of Open Text. “Through this acquisition, Spicer customers benefit from access to an expanded ECM solutions portfolio and our commitment to continued Spicer product availability with enhanced innovation, development and 24x7 customer support.“

Tim Lehan and Patrick Pidduck, long-standing leaders from Spicer, will join Open Text and form the nucleus of Open Text’s Content Viewer Solutions Group. The charter of this group will be to carry on the development, support, and sale of the Spicer products, and develop similar capabilities for Open Text’s ECM Suite. Open Text software is used by over 40 million end users in over 46,000 customers, all with increasing expectations of a rich user experience, including high-quality rendering of a myriad of content formats.