Open Text Corp, the Ontario, Canada-based internet software house, has bought Information Dimensions Inc from Gores Technology Group for an undisclosed sum. Open Text has become a major force because this is its ninth acquisition over the past two years, and claims the new acquisiton will take it up to a 42.7% market share of the enterprise document managemet sector. Information Dimensions, from Dublin, Ohio has annual sales of $20m and 170 employees and was once regarded as Open Text’s closest rival until it was acquired by business management specialist Gores last year (CI No 3,209). Open Text now plans to merge the company’s enterprise-level knowledge library technology into its knowledge management application, Livelink Intranet. Open Text’s now claims worldwide installed base of 2.5 million users in 3,400 corporations. The combined company has 570 employees, products in 12 languages and 82 valued added resellers in 31 countries. Even this bid may not satisfy Open Text’s lust for market dominance. Meanwhile, its rival Altris Software Inc, the struggling San Diego, California-based document management company has been delisted from Nasdaq. Altris also had to cut $10.7m from its revenues in a restatement exercise stretching back to early 1996 and would be extremely vulnerable to any approach (CI No 3,417).
