Lava Systems Africa, an affinity partner of Canadian-based Open Text, today launched the latter`s revolutionary new collaboration platform that will create a whole new way to work online.
Called Livelink Touchpoint, the solution is the first to unify Web conferencing, blogs, team workspaces, instant messaging and the ability to see the online presence of others into a single, seamless interface - a complete contextual collaboration platform to make communication and online work easier.
Livelink Touchpoint is the first of many solutions to be based on Open Text`s new services-oriented development platform, called the Livelink ECM Services Architecture.
"Organisations have many core and critical processes whose success is dependent on the capabilities of key people to share information, collaborate and make decisions in a timely manner. Historically, users have had to wander across multiple tools and interfaces to effectively search, aggregate, sort and consolidate content and team feedback," commented Mike Gotta, Senior Vice-President and Principal Analyst, Meta Group, Inc.
"Strategic solutions for improving business performance and innovation will exploit collaborative shared workspaces that seamlessly connect people and information to business process in a way that satisfies the workstyle needs of users and integrates contextually with line-of-business applications. These tools should support both real-time and asynchronous interaction models as well as unifying workers that are office-based and those that are remote or mobile."
Livelink Touchpoint is designed to better match the dynamics of human interaction, while eliminating the need for users to switch between applications to use different collaboration tools. For example, a user can see the presence of a co-worker online, instant message that person, then, with one click and within the same interface, quickly escalate that interaction into a Web meeting where the two can share documents or `white board` ideas. If necessary, the two can involve others and create a team workspace for an ongoing project. All collaboration occurs within the Livelink Touchpoint interface, with only a single click needed to add tools as the interaction progresses. Livelink Touchpoint also offers access to electronic content throughout the organisation so users can easily access the information they need as they work with others online.
"Effective team collaboration is vital to the global companies we serve - the emphasis today is on making collaboration tools that are free of barriers, and that enhance and improve human interaction," added David Glazer, Chief Technology Officer of Open Text. "In creating Livelink Touchpoint, we carefully analysed the way people work together and created a solution that moves gracefully with the ebb and flow of group conversation, letting users concentrate on the tasks, not the tools."
Livelink Touchpoint offers a rich, dynamic collaborative environment that will integrate with all of Livelink`s ECM features - content management, knowledge management, records management, workflow, search and other tools - as well as with other Open Text ECM solutions and customers` other business systems, such as ERP and CRM applications. This feature lets users working in Livelink Touchpoint easily access content from across the business, whether in Livelink, Microsoft SharePoint, SAP, Siebel or others. The solution also includes integration with Microsoft Outlook for scheduling.
Over the next year, Open Text will add new capabilities to further develop Livelink Touchpoint as a core collaboration interface for the Livelink ECM suite. Future enhancements include video, voice and mobile device integration.
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Open Text is the market leader in providing enterprise content management (ECM) solutions that bring together people, processes and information in global organisations. Since launching the world`s first Internet search engine and the first Web-based enterprise collaboration and knowledge management software, Open Text continued its leadership in providing global enterprises with innovative and effective solutions. Throughout its history, Open Text has matched its tradition of innovation with a track record of financial strength and growth. Today, the Canadian-based company supports 15 million end-users across deployments in 31 countries and 12 languages worldwide and includes among its client base government departments in Australia, Canada and Japan; the UK Metropolitan Police; British telecommunications, UNHCR and the USA Department of Defence.
Open Text`s flagship product, Livelink seamlessly combines collaboration with content management, helping organisations transform information into knowledge in order to provide the foundation for innovation, compliance and accelerated growth. Open Text acquired Germany`s Ixos Software AG in February this year to become the largest ECM software vendor in Europe and the largest pure-play ECM software vendor in the world, according to Bradley West, an analyst with Southwest Securities Inc.
Lava Systems
The Lava Systems Africa (Pty) Ltd, team originated in the late 1990s with the objective of becoming a premier supplier of enterprise systems based around knowledge management, document management, records management, image management, collaboration and workflow solutions. The emerging demands that were identified included government process re-engineering, supply chain co-ordination, customer relationship management, e-government and B2B processing. In support of these business aims the technology platforms chosen had to enjoy a proven global track record and adhere to open Internet architecture standards and developments. Lava Systems Africa is a South African-based BEE company dedicated to the sales, marketing, support and consultancy founded upon the Livelink product suite from Open Text, a product that the staff have been involved with since 1998.
Lava Systems Africa user base embraces customers from both the private and public sector and includes organisations such as Bateman Projects Limited, Alexander Forbes, the Gauteng Provincial Government and the National Social Security Fund of Uganda.
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