Village Gamer

OpenText™  celebrated 20 years of innovation and growth yesterday with the official opening of the company’s Innovation Centre at its headquarters location. The company that started as an offshoot of a University of Waterloo search engine project has burgeoned into Canada’s largest software company, operating around the world with annual revenues in excess of US $1 billion.

“As we celebrate OpenText’s 20th anniversary, we want to recognize the incredible success of our customers, employees and partners,” said Mark J. Barrenechea, OpenText CEO.  “We will continue to invest in leading software solutions that help enterprises manage critical information that drives their business.”

The OpenText celebration includes the founder of OpenText, Computer Science Professor at the University of Waterloo Frank Tompa – after whom the road leading to the company headquarters is named – along with dignitaries representing all levels of government.

“The original building links to our Innovation Centre via an air bridge, which is symbolic as we share today the consistent link of innovation that bridges our past accomplishments with future progress,” said Tom Jenkins, Executive Chairman and Chief Strategy Officer at OpenText. “It’s wonderful that the many people who have supported tech innovation in Waterloo Region can be here today – in the David Johnston Research and Technology Park on the Campus of the University of Waterloo – helping us celebrate OpenText’s 20-year anniversary.”

OpenText announced the planned headquarters expansion in December 2009, began construction in the summer of 2010, and completed the project in 2011. The expansion will accommodate growth over time, with a total of 233,000 square feet of space at the headquarters location. The new Innovation Centre has been designed to reflect current best practices in software R&D continuous innovation, including scrum teams, ‘ideation’ rooms, and videoconferencing capability to link R&D staff globally.

John Shackleton, CEO at OpenText from July 2005 through December 2011, will be honored at the celebration event, with the Innovation Centre dedicated in his name in recognition of his thoughtful leadership, Jenkins explained. Throughout its history, OpenText has expanded the boundaries of Enterprise Content Management, Customer Experience Management and Business Process Management to enable organizations around the world to implement the best enterprise information management practices in their operations.

Jenkins will also unveil at the celebration a new book titled, “Behind the Firewall – Big Data and the Hidden Web: The Path to Enterprise Information Management”. The book chronicles technology evolution from the early days of computing to the current shift to the delivery of content and services to users.

“Behind the firewall, where the database and application suite remain critical core components to an enterprise infrastructure, the future belongs to the combination of Customer Experience Management, Enterprise Content Management and Business Process Management,” the book descriptor reveals.