TORONTO, March 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Hummingbird Ltd. , a leading global provider of integrated enterprise content management (ECM) solutions, today unveiled Hummingbird Enterprise(TM) Client for Microsoft Outlook, a new client for the most widely used e-mail environment. The new Client provides a fully interactive, business-based view of the entire suite of Hummingbird Enterprise functionality from within Microsoft Outlook.

Building on the concepts of Hummingbird's highly successful document management client for Microsoft Outlook, Hummingbird Enterprise(TM) Client for Microsoft Outlook represents a major innovation in how knowledge workers interact with all their business content, applications, and processes without ever having to leave the familiar Outlook client interface.

According to a recent survey conducted by the Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM), up to 70 percent of a knowledge worker's day is spent dealing with e-mail and associated attachments. Recent customer research conducted by Hummingbird has also shown a strong preference to work within the Outlook environment coupled with a desire to have more complete, highly intuitive ECM functionality.

"Unlike the traditional integrations available in the marketplace today, Hummingbird Enterprise Client for Microsoft Outlook allows organizations to manage the entire lifecycle of their business content, presenting all the content and business processes in a dynamic view tailored to the organization's business and the user's role," said Barry Litwin, President and Chief Executive Officer, Hummingbird Ltd. "User adoption is key to the success of every ECM deployment, and our new Client ensures virtually no additional training requirements for Microsoft Outlook users."

With Hummingbird Enterprise Client for Microsoft Outlook, a corporate banker will work with a deal management view of business content, manage an engagement, and collaborate with colleagues on complex, linked company valuation spreadsheets by sharing content in a secure collaborative deal room. A government employee will interact with all incoming and outgoing correspondence including e-mail, fax and mail through a correspondence management view. And a senior partner of a law firm will organize and view all the pleadings and correspondence related to a client matter, and also instantly generate a report with the most up-to-date information on billable hours - all from within Outlook.

At the core of the new Client is a highly flexible Business Solution Framework, encompassing business logic, vertical specific taxonomies, and role- based presentation rules. The Business Solution Framework not only powers Hummingbird Enterprise Client for Microsoft Outlook but also presents the same business-based hierarchy through virtually all integrated content authoring applications, including Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

Leveraging the Business Solution Framework and the supplied vertical templates, organizations will be able to easily tailor Hummingbird Enterprise to fit their business model, resulting in a substantial increase in user productivity.

Through its framework, Hummingbird Enterprise Client for Microsoft Outlook seamlessly exposes the functionality of all Hummingbird Enterprise components deployed in an organization, providing users with the following capabilities:

- Organize Content - Deploy multiple Business Solution Frameworks to be exposed in Outlook, for example, Sales Region/Customer/Deal; Practice Area (or Area of Law)/Jurisdiction; Client/Matter, Department/Project; or Agency/Case. - Manage E-Mail - Ensure that all essential business correspondence is captured and managed appropriately. Users simply drag and drop e-mails and their attachments into a Hummingbird Enterprise folder, and the system will automatically capture metadata and set permissions based on pre-defined business rules, manage e-mail threads and attachments, and provide de-duplication services. - Manage Full Content Lifecycle - Reduce training costs and user adoption barriers by managing content and records in the familiar Outlook interface, with full functionality, check-in/check-out, versioning, permissions, profiling, and history. - Search all Desktop, Enterprise, and External Content - Increase user productivity with the industry's first truly unified search solution, allowing users from within Outlook to simultaneously search their local desktop; all corporate knowledge repositories including knowledge bases, file systems, and e-mail; enterprise business systems; and external knowledge sources including the Internet and subscribed services, including .PST, .OST, PDF, XML, and over 225 other file types. - Manage Business Processes - Empower users to kick-off (initiate) workflows, then participate, delegate, escalate and monitor progress without leaving Outlook. - Generate Reports and Analyze Business - Provide business owners with one-click access to generate reports, with report variables automatically driven by the business solution framework or selected by the user. - Securely Collaborate - Maximize participation in collaborative projects, providing users with the option of publishing content and securely collaborating from within Outlook rather than a separate Web browser. - Manage Records for Compliance - Ensure compliance by protecting all business correspondence and other relevant content from within Outlook automatically. Hummingbird Enterprise will apply corporate retention and disposition policies based on business rules freeing users from learning a new application or way of working. - Publish and Archive Content - Easily publish content to Web sites or archive content to third party content archival systems with a single click. - Seamless Integration with Practice Support Capabilities - Law firms using Hummingbird LegalKEY(R) practice support systems including Enterprise Records Management, Conflicts of Interest Management, New Business Intake and Critical Dates Management for use in calendaring, will benefit from a comprehensive and unified practice support solution that fee-earners and staff can access through Outlook.

Availability: Hummingbird Enterprise(TM) Client for Microsoft Outlook will be an interface option for Hummingbird Enterprise 2005, which is expected to be generally available this summer.

About Hummingbird Enterprise(TM)

Hummingbird Enterprise provides an integrated platform for enterprise content management that provides global organizations with solutions to manage business interaction information such as documents, records, virtual deal room exchanges, discussions, e-mail or financial data - linking business processes, information and people. Hummingbird solutions are designed as modular applications that are fully interoperable with each other, enabling customers to incrementally build an enterprise content management solution to meet their evolving information needs in a cost effective manner.

About Hummingbird

Hummingbird Ltd. is a leading global provider of enterprise software solutions. Hummingbird's enterprise content management (ECM) solutions enable organizations to manage the lifecycle of enterprise content from creation to disposition. Hummingbird Enterprise solutions enable organizations to address critical business needs, such as information management, business continuity, compliance and risk mitigation.

Founded in 1984, Hummingbird employs over 1,400 people and serves more than 33,000 customers, including 90% of Fortune 100. Hummingbird solutions are sold directly from 40 offices worldwide and through our Alliance Network of partners and resellers. For more information, visit http://www.hummingbird.com/

Forward-looking statements in this press release, including statements relating to the Company's capital structure, future sales growth, profitability, competitive position and release of new products are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are based on assumptions made by and information currently available to the Company. Investors are cautioned that these forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause future results to differ materially from those expected. Such risks include, but are not limited to: the Company's ability to secure underwriting support and attract investors to its stock; the Company's ability to introduce new products in a timely manner and its ability to generate demand for, and gain market acceptance of, those products in an intensely competitive marketplace, where many of its competitors have substantially greater resources than the Company; the Company's ability to maintain revenue growth at current levels or anticipate a decline in revenue from any of its products; the Company's ability to reduce its costs to the extent required to maintain profitability should revenue decline; the Company's ability to hire, train, and retain highly qualified personnel; the Company's reliance on third party distribution channels as part of its sales and marketing strategy; and other risks detailed in the Company's various securities filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and Canadian securities regulators.

CONTACT: Dan Coombes, Director, Investor Relations, Hummingbird Ltd.,
Tel: (416) 496-2200 ext. 6359, dan.coombes@hummingbird.com; Michele
Stevenson, Senior Manager, Corporate Communications, Hummingbird Ltd., Tel:
(416) 496-2200 ext. 2623, michele.stevenson@hummingbird.com;
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