Open Text Corporation, the Canadian developer of web-based collaborative knowledge management application software, has upped its bid for PC Docs Group, the Burlington, Massachusetts provider of client/server, internet document management and financial and case management systems. The Canadian firm, which made a bid worth $113m in December, is offering $5.82 per share which values PC Docs at $140m.
PC Docs would give Open Text access to more customers, some of the technology, and some of its people, said Tony Heywood, Open Text’s VP for Europe. It offers interesting technologies, says Heywood, in document management, its staple product line and a search and cataloging tool called Fulcrum. PC Docs’ European operations employ around 130 staff.
PC Docs was almost picked up last month by Hummingbird Communications Ltd, a Canadian business intelligence software vendor, which offered stock $155m (CI No 3,613). The difference is we’re offering cash, says Heywood.
PC Docs would stand to gain a scalability that Heywood claims it has previously lacked. It has technology that was never designed for what companies want today. He said that Open Text, with its web-based approach, would offer the ability to turn products which are sold to departments into enterprise-wide tools covering thousands of desktops.
