Optika Announces Web Services and .NET Capabilities with Acorde 3.0 Release; Functionality Extended with Web Services, .NET Interoperability and Full Text Search and Retrieval

Business Wire, Dec 10, 2002

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 10, 2002

Optika, Inc. (Nasdaq:OPTK), a leading provider of Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions, today announced the controlled release of its next-generation product suite.

More than 2,000 companies worldwide have chosen the Optika product family to manage documents and mission-critical business processes throughout their enterprise. Over 20 Optika customers are participating in the controlled release program.

With the Acorde 3.0 product family, these customers are able to utilize powerful web services to access the Acorde repository, leverage the power of the Microsoft(R) .NET platform via the Acorde toolkit as well as provide for full text search and retrieval of critical business documents. In addition to the new feature set, the Acorde 3.0 product family includes extended integration capabilities with Oracle E-Business Suite and the Microsoft Business Solutions product family.

"Acorde 3.0 is a major milestone for Optika, our Advantage partners and customers," said Mark K. Ruport, President and CEO of Optika. "Acorde 3.0 elevates the power of our products to a new standard. Companies can now build seamlessly integrated solutions based on open Web standards that dramatically improve the efficiency of their operations, thereby increasing the bottom line."

Extending the Solution with Web Services

Acorde 3.0 includes powerful Web Services for critical business functions, which allows businesses to facilitate better communication and cooperation internally and with their suppliers and customers. With Web Services, system integrators can easily workflow enable existing line of business applications so that end users can locate work in a business process as well as participate in and update workflow information regardless of the platform. "Every customer is looking for ways to drive down the cost of operations. XML Web Services continues to be the most efficient way to provide inter-company communication around business transactions," says Hollis Bischoff, vice president at META Group. "Those providing their customers with these services integrated into their product line will be leaders in their market space."

Interoperability with .NET

Many businesses are looking for solutions that can be deployed from either the .NET or the J2EE environments. Because the Acorde Web Services have been built on XML Web Services standards, customers are able to call the Acorde solutions from either environment and leverage their investment in the Acorde solution by process- or content-enabling external-facing applications. Customers can utilize the Acorde product suite to easily interconnect the flow of information across their enterprise. With the capabilities of .NET and J2EE, access to critical business documents and processes stored in Acorde is available with minimal effort for the integrator.

Full Text Search and Retrieval

Also included in Acorde 3.0 is a new Full Text Module that allows customers to simultaneously search both the metadata and the content of documents within the Acorde repository. "End users are always looking for new ways to find information within the Acorde system," explains Mary Kennedy, System Programmer Administrator with the Florida Division of Licensing. "By including full text search and retrieval with the historical metadata search capabilities, our end users aren't required to know how a particular document was indexed in order to find it." The Acorde Full Text add-on module also includes OCR functionality so that scanned documents, as well as electronic, can be indexed into the system for later full text retrieval.

Additional Integration Capabilities

Optika continues to push aggressively in the ERP market space with additional integration capabilities announced for Microsoft Business Solutions applications. The Microsoft Business Solutions channel-certified integration has been extended to include the ability to update the Microsoft Business Solutions - Great Plains application with information stored within Acorde. This allows customers to utilize the Acorde Process component to gather necessary information about a specific invoice or purchase order and then push that information back into the Microsoft Business Solutions - Great Plains application. For any customer in a distributed environment, this functionality is crucial to lowering costs and improving cycle times. "We are pleased with the effort that Optika has put into their Great Plains integration," says Shawn Hanson, ISV Technical Lead, Microsoft Business Solutions. "Their product family and subsequent integration to Great Plains provides powerful imaging and workflow management capabilities that many of our customers require for enterprise deployments."

Optika business partners are embracing the Microsoft Business Solutions - Great Plains integration to drive greater sales and services within their organization. "As a long-time Optika partner, we have recently expanded our product offering to include the Microsoft Business Solutions product family," reveals Paul Szemplinski, President of Integrated Document Technologies, which has offices in Chicago, IL and Colorado Springs, CO. "The integration Optika developed with Great Plains is very important to us. With the combination of the two applications, we feel we can offer a rapid Return on Investment to our customers. Already, excitement is building in our existing base as well as with our prospects."