OpenText sees four growth opportunities for the recently acquired Carbonite data protection and Webroot cybersecurity businesses. But the growth-focused journey also involves a restructuring plan that will impact the technology company's global workforce and consolidate some real estate facilities, OpenText said Thursday.
In a press release about the restructuring, OpenText did not disclose how many positions will be impacted.
The OpenText restructuring will save the company approximately $26 million to $34 million, and is expected to be completed by the end of the company's fiscal 2021 -- or perhaps sooner. The company recently completed its fiscal Q2 2020.
OpenText: Four Carbonite, Webroot Growth Opportunities
OpenText completed the Carbonite acquisition in December 2019. The deal included the Webroot cybersecurity business -- and relationships with 16,000 channel partners, OpenText asserts.
In an earnings call yesterday, OpenText CEO Mark Barrenechea described four long-term opportunities for Carbonite and Webroot. They include:
- Expand the MSP and RMM channels and thereby increase reach.
- Unlock the OEM opportunity with BrightCloud -- a solution that authenticates every URL that it processes.
- Expand the Carbonite opportunity within the OpenText enterprise. Specifically, Carbonite can provide endpoint data protection as well as ensure the authenticity and integrity of every file, the company says.
- Expand Carbonite into Europe at scale.
Carbonite Cyber Resilience Strategy
Carbonite Chief Revenue Officer Craig Stillwell has joined OpenText's leadership team and is now executive VP of SMB and Consumer. He reports directly to Barrenechea, and leads the Carbonite business.
Carbonite's core partner and sales functions -- areas like go-to-market, demand generation, pre-sales and more -- remain unified under Stillwell and will not be absorbed into OpenText's parent organization, the company indicated on the earnings call.
During a briefing with ChannelE2E earlier this month, Stillwell expressed strong optimism in Carbonite's Cyber Resilience strategy -- which essentially blends data protection and cybersecurity into a 360-degree, automated business protection system.
Still, there are challenges ahead, ChannelE2E believes. The Carbonite and Webroot products are not yet fully integrated on all fronts, particularly when it comes to MSP dashboards, and connections to third-party tools like RMM (remote monitoring and management) and PSA (professional services automations). Those integrations are largely table stakes that many other cybersecurity and data protection firms already support.
Also, an integrated Carbonite and Webroot channel partner program won't likely debut until around mid-2020 -- a slight delay from an earlier target of February 2020.
OpenText: The SMB Opportunity
Nevertheless, OpenText certainly has opportunities in the MSP and VAR channels serving SMB customers. The Carbonite-Webroot combo is a rare example of (1) data protection and (2) endpoint protection intellectual property living under one company's roof. Now, it's up to OpenText to integrate and innovate around those two areas, essentially blending them into one true cyber resilience solution.
Wall Street appears to like the overall OpenText strategy. The company's latest financial results, announced yesterday, largely beat Wall Street's estimates and chatter about the Carbonite strategy was upbeat.
