OpenText has file, sync and sharing capabilities already which it claims give customers the ability to share content whenever and wherever they want. It's not entirely clear why OpenText bought Hightail. Since its founding in 2004, Hightail has raised more than $90 million in financing. Hightail has approximately 5.5 million customers globally, spanning enterprise accounts, paid subscribers and individual consumers. Waterloo, Ontario-based OpenText is the latest to get in on the acquisition activity in the digital workplace space with its purchase of Campbell, Calif.-based file sharing company Hightail, formerly known as YouSendIt. ![]() “In this landscape, traditional approaches to data protection are obsolete.” OpenText Acquires Hightail “Customer expectations have never been higher, and there is immense pressure to move faster, work across the extended enterprise, and deliver new experiences,” Stephanie Carullo, COO of Box, said in a statement. ![]() The company also announced the creation of a new consulting service geared towards helping clients understand and adhere to data protection requirements. The company said at the time that it employs 200 people across Europe and will be adding more over the year. Only last month, Box announced the expansion of its London headquarters which will serve all of Europe. It will also make it easier for Box to continue to develop its European presence. It covers both Box and its customers and is designed to install confidence in the company and its storage and file sharing offerings. The document, in effect, is about reassuring existing customers that their Box deployment meets the rigorous standards set out in the regulations. The GDPR covers the personal data for every EU citizen and provides comprehensive rights to data subjects. GDPR is the most significant data protection development in years, and was created to give European citizens more control over their personal data - ranging from mailing addresses to IP information. Once signed, customers can provide the DPA to auditors to show their use of Box meets their GDPR compliance obligation. The DPA, which is available for all current Box business customers, is a self-serve document that only requires an electronic signature from customers. However, this release is not a tech release in the true sense of the term, it's a document called the Data Processing Addendum (DPA). This week, Redwood City, Calif.-based-based Box was the latest. And tech vendors have been falling over each other to develop products that help them do exactly that. OpenText reports that the purchase of Hightail is not expected to contribute significant revenue for their fiscal third quarter.In the lead up to the May 25 GDPR ( General Data Protection Regulations) effective date, organizations doing business with European Union citizens have been exploring what it takes to remain compliant with the new regulations. In a statement, OpenText CEO Mark Barrenechea said, "The acquisition of Hightail underscores our commitment to delivering differentiated content solutions in the cloud that enable marketers and creative professionals to share, produce, and securely collaborate on digital content." The company boasts 5.5 million customers globally. The service offers functionalities such as confirmation of delivery, file tracking and notification of file download by the recipient, basic collaboration, and end-to-end file encryption. ![]() ![]() Hightail's service is a mash up of file sharing/syncing capabilities, like Dropbox and Box, and document delivery. Hightail, formerly known as YouSendIt, was founded by Ranjith Kumaran in 2004 and is headquartered in Campbell, California. With this move, OpenText continues to display their aggressive cloud strategy, as enterprise file synchronization and sharing technologies tighten their foothold on the enterprise. This latest purchase adds to OpenText's content arsenal, including OpenText Content Suite, Documentum, Core, and Media Management. The new year has been pretty quiet on the acquisition front for OpenText, but today, they showed some love for the cloud file sharing and collaboration firm Hightail, announcing they had acquired Hightail for an undisclosed amount.
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