Hummingbird Document Imaging Rebrands To Livelink ECM

Open Text Corp, now the largest software-centric company in Canada purchased Hummingbird Ltd, a fellow Canadian company, in 2006. As part of their continuing integrating of the two enterprise document management firms, Hummingbird Document Imaging products are being re-branded as Open text Livelink ECM. Most Hummingbird products now carry the Livelinks ECM - eDOCS is their new product name. They are still the same document imaging software products that have served you well in the past, but merely with a new name and image.

Before Hummingbird Document Imaging Management Software, Hummingbird began life as a consulting business in 1984 and evolved into a strong player in the connectivity market. Diversifying its business, Hummingbird became a leading provider of enterprise software solutions. Its enterprise content management (ECM) solutions have helped customers to manage the entire life cycle of enterprise content.

In May 2006, the company's board of directors agreed to be sold to Symphony Technology Group, but following a hostile bid from Open Text, the board negotiated a more valuable deal with its rival and accepted an all cash, $489 million US Dollar buy out from Open Text. Following the close of the deal in October, Open Text announced a 15% global workforce reduction. Hummingbird had 40 offices worldwide and was founded and based in Toronto. It is expected that many of these offices will be consolidated with existing offices of Open Text as part of the ongoing integration. Customers include IBM, NASA, Morgan Stanley, Boeing, and the government of Canada.

Open Text originated from the Oxford English Dictionary project at the University of Waterloo, led by computer scientist Gaston Gonnet. From 1984 to 1989, the project sought to create an electronic OED. One of the chief requirements for such a massive undertaking was the development of smart and effective search technologies which could be used to quickly index and retrieve file information. The search technology that was developed for this project was recognized as being useful for many other electronic applications, and was the basis for the founding of Open Text Corporation in 1991.

In 1994, Open Text began hosting their Open Text 4 search engine on the World Wide Web, competing directly with the leading search engines of the time. For a short period in 1995, Open Text provided the search technology used by Yahoo! as part of its Web index. Open Text is based in Waterloo, ON and has recently acquired other businesses in addition to Hummingbird as part of its overall growth and diversification strategy.

Hummingbird Document Imaging products and their replacement Livelink products are still leading document managing software solutions for SM Windows and hand held devices. This will not change under the Open Text Corporation.