Cloud-storage backup provider Carbonite on Feb. 13 announced the acquisition of a longtime rival, Mozy, from Dell Technologies for $145.8 million in cash.
The deal expands Carbonite’s customer base and better positions Carbonite to offer its data protection platform to every segment of the market, the Boston-based company said.
“Carbonite’s competitive advantage is our flexible data protection platform, which serves every scenario, from backing up individual laptops to maintaining uptime for hundreds of business servers,” Mohamad Ali, President and CEO of Carbonite, said in a media advisory.
“This deal provides Mozy customers scalable options for the future and gives Carbonite a broader base to which we offer our solutions.”
It’s been a long, strange trip for Mozy over the years.
A dozen years ago, Carbonite, Mozy, Box and Dropbox were all starting out. All have succeeded in the market in different ways: Carbonite and Box went public, while Dropbox is finally expected to do an IPO this year. Meanwhile, Mozy and its parent company, Berkeley Data Systems, were acquired by EMC in 2007 for $76 million.
EMC messed with Mozy quite a bit during its ownership of the little company that started out with 50 people in American Fork, Utah, in 2004. Mozy made an early mark by offering unlimited cloud storage for $4.95 per month in 2006. It grew moderately well under its own power.
After the acquisition, EMC surprisingly merged it with a subsidiary, Pi, to become a new entity called Decho. That move caused a lot of storage experts to scratch their heads. Some people inside EMC, speaking off the record to eWEEK at the time, expressed disappointment with the Mozy technology without naming specific issues.
In 2011, EMC transferred ownership of Mozy (which had been Decho for a short time, but went back to Mozy) to VMware. Talk about mixed marketing messages.
In October 2015, Dell bought the EMC empire for $67 billion, which included VMware, and thus it inherited Mozy.
In 2016, Dell EMC acquired the Virtustream enterprise-level storage cloud, which apparently replaced Mozy’s business offering. That set the table for a Mozy exit, and that’s what happened Feb. 13.
Also on Feb. 13, Carbonite also announced its fourth-quarter and fiscal year 2017 highlights:
- Revenue of $239.5 million, increased 16 percent year-over-year.
- Non-GAAP revenue of $246.1 million increased 18 percent year-over-year.
- Bookings of $245.9 million increased 17 percent year-over-year.
- Net loss per share was ($0.14), as compared to ($0.15) in 2016 (basic and diluted).
- Non-GAAP net income per share was $0.82 (basic) and $0.79 (diluted), as compared to $0.61 (basic) and $0.60 (diluted) in 2016.