Actions speak louder than words...or numbers

Just got back from ILTA '09 and a tremendous time catching up with customers, partners, and colleagues within the legal industry. As expected, attendance was down a bit to prior years but the conversation and dialogue about technology's importance in today's economy certainly was not. I'll have another post in the next couple of days on my take of the conference.

One big announcement Open Text made was the fact that 90% of the AmLaw 200 now use Open Text solutions (Press Release). We and our customers have recognized that firms need more than just basic document management to meet their ECM needs. I think Brook Lee, CIO at Fox Rothschild, summed it up best in saying, "From my experience, Open Text has a definite commitment and focus in the legal market. They can help firms see beyond document management and deliver solutions for firm-wide ECM." For some time our customers have had to endure phone calls and spam regarding percentages of the AMLaw rankings. While most of the signage and message that I saw from our competitor was squarely focused on corporate legal and how they can facilitate search across the enterprise rather than compliant management of the content itself, I thought it was very telling that they seemingly felt the need to respond to our release on the event's last full day...and that their response was chock full of numbers: 75 of 100, 10 of 10, etc.

So we said 90% of 200, they said 75% of 100 and 100% of 10...I guess the old adage holds true, that you can use statistics to prove anything :-) Personally, I think our statement speaks for itself. The real meat of our announcement is the fact that our customers are investing in more than core document management and they're choosing to do it with Open Text. I'm thankful to you, our customers, who help prove this out every day.

I wonder how much clout these numbers hold with you our customers or whether we're just contributing by providing entertainment, let me know in the comments!

And, if you still have a special place in your heart for numbers, how about this one?

Fortune magazine ranks Open Text 15th Amongst World's Fastest Growing Companies (Press Release)

I didn't see any other legal technology vendors on the list. As a buyer, I'd be very happy to know that some of the world's most well known financial analysts see stability and continued viability in the technology I've chosen to deploy. :-)