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 Open Text signs CHEST Agreement to offer FirstClass to the Educational Community in the UK and Ireland
~ Provides Integrated Messaging and Collaboration for Education ~
London, UK — 11th May 2003 — Open Text™ Corporation’s FirstClass Division announced an agreement with CHEST, a division of EduServ, to offer its messaging, collaboration and unified communications software to the Higher and Further Education sectors across the UK and Ireland. Open Text announced the news to customers today at LiveLinkUp Paris, Open Text’s European user conference.
CHEST, a not-for-profit organization, negotiates for all forms of commercially available electronic resources, including software, on behalf of it’s members in the education and research communities in the UK and Republic of Ireland.
Through the CHEST Agreement, FirstClass is available to academic organizations to create their own customized online learning environments. For example, The Open University is one of the largest and most successful online learning communities in the world, offering distance-learning courses to around 200,000 part-time students. Using FirstClass, The Open University provides an excellent method for tutors to share information and resources with students in a structured and user-friendly environment.
“ We believe our members are looking for the latest solutions for integrated online collaboration which can enhance the educational process” said Jenny Carroll, Contracts Officer at CHEST. “CHEST aims to negotiate terms, stability and affordability that education requires in the roll-out of software”.
FirstClass is an ideal solution for academic organizations as it is designed specifically to support and develop the needs of educational environments. Using FirstClass it is possible to create a secure and customizable learning community that is a suitable forum for teaching staff, students, alumni, parents and administrators to share information and resources.
“CHEST provides an excellent link between software vendors and the educational community and we are delighted to have entered into a long-term agreement with CHEST to offer FirstClass to its member sites” said Steve Summers, Managing Director, FirstClass Division of Open Text International.
The scalability of FirstClass makes it the ideal collaborative solution for large organizations as it can support in excess of 100,000 users on one server. To date, hundreds of educational institutions around the world have deployed FirstClass as it not only boasts a lower total cost of ownership, but also provides superior performance in a reliable and scalable solution.
Brenda Morris, Country Manager, Open Text UK & Ireland comments “We appreciate the importance of having a relationship with CHEST having already achieved a listing with CHEST for Livelink Campus Collaboration. We are delighted therefore that our FirstClass Division has concluded an agreement for the FirstClass products."
FirstClass is available through CHEST and includes the FirstClass Server, User Licenses, Internet Services, Designer, Rapid Application Developer and Palm Sync applications. Maintenance and Support is included for the duration of the Agreement.
For more information on Open Text’s LiveLinkUp Paris, go to: http://www.opentext.com/livelinkup/2003-Paris/index.html
About EduServ
Based in the center of Bath, EduServ is a not-for-profit organization and is registered as a charity in the UK. CHEST, a division of EduServ, negotiates terms for software and online data licenses for educational institutions in the UK and Ireland and manages the resultant agreements. CHEST is driven only by demand of its members and the need to provide the best possible value to educational institutions.
www.eduserv.org.uk, www.chest.ac.uk
About FirstClass
Open Text’s FirstClass combines award-winning collaborative groupware and unified communications technologies into a single software system. The core FirstClass Communications Platform provides users with the ability to effectively communicate and share information through email, conferencing, directories, calendars and instant messaging. FirstClass Unified Communications brings voice mail and fax messages into the FirstClass Communications Platform to create a truly unified messaging system. This provides FirstClass users with a high degree of flexibility to use the device of their choice at any given moment to access their messaging and collaboration environment including mobile phones, telephones, personal computers, web browsers, and personal digital assistants. FirstClass is a product of the FirstClass Division of Open Text
Corporation. For more information, visit www.firstclass.com.
About Open Text Corporation
Since 1991, Open Text Corporation has delivered innovative software that brings people together to share knowledge, achieve excellence, deliver innovation, and enhance processes. Its legacy of innovation began with the successful deployment of the world's first search engine technology for the Internet. Today, as the leading global supplier of collaboration and knowledge management software for the enterprise, Open Text supports fifteen million seats across 10,000 corporate deployments in 31 countries and 12 languages throughout the world. As a publicly traded company, Open Text manages and maximizes its resources and relationships to ensure the success of great minds working together. For more information, visit www.opentext.com.
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This news release may contain forward-looking statements relating to the deployment of FirstClass by customers, and future performance of Open Text Corporation. Forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially. These risks and uncertainties include, among others, risks involved in the completion and integration of acquisitions, the possibility of technical, logistical or planning issues in connection with deployments, the continuous commitment of the Company's customers and other risks detailed from time to time in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), including the final prospectus for the Company's initial public offering of common stock in January 1996, Form 10-K for the years ended June 30, 1996, June 30, 1997, June 30, 1998, June
30, 1999, June 30, 2000, June 30, 2001, and June 30, 2002, and 10-Q for the quarters ending September 30, 2002 and December 31, 2002. Forward-looking statements are based on management's beliefs and opinions at the time the statements are made, and the Company does not undertake any obligations to update forward-looking statements should circumstances or management's beliefs or opinions change.
Copyright© 2003 by Open Text Corporation. FIRSTCLASS COMMUNICATIONS PLATFORM and OPEN TEXT are trademarks or registered trademarks of Open Text Corporation in the United States of America, Canada, the European Union and/or other countries. This list of trademarks is not exhaustive. Other trademarks, registered trademarks, product names, company names, brands and service names mentioned herein are property of Open Text Corporation or other respective owners.
Margaret Dobbin
Director, Industry Analyst Relations
Open Text Corporation
+1-519-888-7111 ext.2410
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