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OpenText acquires mobility vendor weComm

9-Mar-2011

Tags: Document Management (ECM), Web Content and Experience Management, Marketplace at Large, Mobile Computing, , Vignette - OpenText

OpenText continues its long acquisition spree. After acquiring Metastorm last month, it has now acquired UK-based weComm, a vendor in the mobility space. weComm's "Wave" platform allows you to create apps that are supported on most mobile handsets without having to worry about individual operating systems.

Unlike some other OpenText acquisitions, this one has minimum overlap with the vendor's existing offerings. OpenText does presently sell OpenText Everywhere, but this is a relatively new offering with support for a limited number of devices -  iPhone, iPad, and Blackberry. weComm will not only allow OpenText to include many more handsets (weComm supports about 900 different variations of all major operating systems) but will also allow OpenText to add capabilities such as handling videos and other digital assets as well as analytics and mobile payments.

While weComm supports many handset variations, remember that users still have to download an app to access the mobilized functionality. There are scenarios where delivering a browser web app that can target all different devices might be a better option than a native app. OpenText Everywhere and weComm can do that, but only in a limited fashion.

Most vendors that we cover -- across all of our research streams -- have put mobility high on their agenda. Volantis' acquisition by Antenna and now this one by OpenText are only a sign of more interesting things to come. If you haven't made mobile part of your strategy, you probably should rethink. We'd of course be happy to help.

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