OpenText announces the expansion of its global alliance agreement with Microsoft Corp. to include wider support for Microsoft cloud computing initiatives. As part of the agreement, OpenText's newly formed Business Process Solutions (BPS) Group will be delivering a set of process management and case management solutions on the Windows Azure cloud computing platform. 

OpenText added support for Windows Azure with records management and archiving solutions announced over three years ago. More recently, the OpenText M3 modeling suite achieved Windows Azure competency last year. Now, the tighter alignment between the two companies will give customers more flexibility in the way OpenText applications are deployed: fully in the cloud, on-premise or a hybrid of cloud and on-premise. 

This latest agreement extends the current OpenText-Microsoft agreement to encompass OpenText BPM and Microsoft cloud technologies. It represents a four-year commitment of technology and customer-facing resources and fits within OpenText's broader strategy to offer customers a full range of cloud-based solutions along with flexible deployment options. 

To bring the cloud to life, OpenText and Microsoft will work together to develop industry-specific applications tailored to business and user requirements in industries, such as financial services, oil and gas, utilities and public sector. Going beyond just moving existing applications to the cloud, the companies will also be collaborating on new scenarios that take full advantage of the elasticity, availability, and connectedness of cloud-based computing. 

With many organizations using SharePoint, Office, SQL Server, Visio, Lync, Dynamics and the Windows Azure cloud as part of their core infrastructure, there is a strong need for complementary solutions that extend, enhance and build upon the Microsoft platform. OpenText has stepped up to meet this need with solutions for archival, governance, document capture, faxing, extended records management, business process management, case management, and more.