I have exciting news to share with our Community. Webroot has entered into an agreement to be acquired by Carbonite, a leader in cloud-based data protection for businesses. We expect the deal to close within the first calendar quarter of 2019.
I believe this is great news for you as a Webroot customer and advocate.
When surveyed, SMBs and MSPs consistently name endpoint security and backup/data recovery services among their top priorities. We see great potential in bringing a coordinated solution set to market that becomes your go-to security platform. Whether you buy from Webroot or a trusted channel partner.
Likewise for consumers, the combined Webroot and Carbonite will better protect you, your family and your most sensitive data.
Carbonite shares a similar vision, solution philosophy, commitment to the customer and company culture. Both companies focus on easy-to-use and deploy, cloud-based solutions that address the complicated cybersecurity issues facing individuals and business every day. Additionally, both companies pride themselves on excellent customer care and support.
Our commitment to you and a high level of customer service during this transition will not change. In fact, you’ll continue to hear from and interact with the normal Webroot Community team alongside product and product marketing managers that listen and respond here on a regular basis.
While we must operate as independent companies until the transaction closes, after that stage we look forward to sharing many more detailed updates with you.
If you have any questions during this transition process, please comment on this post or reach out to your Community team.
Mike Potts
This topic has been closed for comments
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Userlevel 7
+28
Like previous commenters have said. I will have to wait and see. I for sure am not going to refer anyone until this plays out.
Userlevel 7
+25
NicCrockett, having been an executive at a number of companies, more than likely you would not be able to renew next renewal IF they pull support. You purchase is a contract, and I am sure you are among many who bought recently, so they would breach a lot of contracts to just kill support in the middle. It would cost Webroot a lot if they had to refund everyone on a pulled product. It would be a PR nightmare as well. Even Carbonite knows that the costs of pulling support immediately. So I would suspect you are OK at least for this renewal. If you see the product disappear from their offerings and that would be your clue that you won't be able to renew next time.
So maybe the best choice for me is to bail before the 70 days is up. It is easy for companies to say to you that your system will be supported. They say that as they are prepairing to leave after making their money. Just like the guy I bought my security system at my house. He tells me this small company has great customer service, top quality equipment. He lives in my neighborhood and says I will always be your support. In 3 months he moved, the companies customer service sucks. The equipment is quality. When a company doesn't have a customers best interest in mind they will say what you want to hear.
Userlevel 7
+28
For me, Webroot's support has been stellar and I only hope that continues or gets better.
I'm taking a wait and see strategy, but Carbonite has gone downhill over the past few years - cutting services and raising prices. I've been moving my Carbonite customers over to other solutions. I hope Carbonite doesn't destroy Webroot. This is not good news.
Userlevel 4
+5
I can't speak to the rest, but if the community managers were just informed of this 30 minutes before the announcement I personally do not thing it is unreasonable to suggest that the sales team may not have been privy to that information either. Just a thought.
the message about consumers no longer being a part of the "traditional OS market" sounds ominous, from my POV.
I'm a consumer. I'm also an artisan and SBO, and I use desktop workstations to do what I do. The fact that I don't have the budget for enterprise-level purchases is likely to leave me out in the cold here, so I'm taking my custom elsewhere. Just in time, it appears.
For absolute clarity this was purely an observation that consumers are increasingly turning away from user maintained full computers towards iPads, smartphones and fully managed systems like Chromebooks and Windows 10S - ecosystems with app stores, sandboxes and fully managed updates. Consumer sales of full computers with a full operating system like Windows (be it Home, Professional or Enterprise edition), MacOS or Linux have been falling for six years as per the article I mentioned earlier.
I suspect that there will always be users like yourself, and indeed like me, who have one or more user maintained computers with full operating systems at home - but for an increasing number of homes it seems that is no longer the case.
I observed that I believe, and this is personal opinion, that the focus of the statements was business because that is the apparent area of future growth. Investors are always interested in the potential for growth in any business change. The audience of the statements is investors, and thus that is the focus.
As far as I am aware there are no plans now or in the future to change supported operating systems.
Userlevel 5
+15
From what I know about Carbonite this will undoubtedly be the end of a great product. It will be with deep regret that after years with Webroot when my subscription is up for renewal in May I will not be renewing.
Userlevel 5
+15
@BurnDaddy From your comment I see I am not the only one who questions the $618 million sale price. With Webroots annual income of around $215 million and several years of double digit growth one would look for a sale price of 5 to 7 times earnings. This deal at first glance without access to the internals looks fishy.
Userlevel 7
Actually, I have no problem with the idea of merging a data security firm with a cybersecurity firm. That's logical and in itself potentially a good thing.
My problem is that, from the time that I did my research about Cloud data storage back in 2010, I have become painfully aware of the appalling customer reviews regarding Carbonite on the internet (please note that I am not talking about the review articles written by IT pros on those online websites but rather the shocking customer reviews that follow). See for example this and this and this.
Webroot, by contrast, generally gets rave customer reviews.
Do I want my cybersecurity to be taken over by a company that attracts such appalling customer feedback?? Look particularly at those customer reviews that talk about the acid test of any data storage company: customers who needed to restore their data. See what they have to say.
Yes, I am needless to say fearful of this acquisition, but of course am open to being reassured (EDIT: unfortunately, the post immediately above this one does not help 😞 ).
Hi Muddy,
I posted a comment in the Webroot Community towards the end of last year about a data security service that I signed up with, I.e Zoolz - https://community.webroot.com/tech-talk-7/how-to-get-the-windows-10-october-2018-update-1809-330254/index3.html#post330699
I'm happy with it for my needs in data backup. 🙂
And all the private venture firms get their huge payoffs and onto the next.
Very nervous here at our MSP organization. We're an existing partner with Carbonite and it's NOT a good relationship.
Hey John,
I’m sorry to hear you are not having a good experience. Both Carbonite and Webroot have much to learn from each other. Carbonite respects the strong relationships we have with our customers and partners, and in the coming months we expect to share the best practices we’ve built to develop, deliver and support services that customers value.
Carbonite definitely values our people as much as our products and technology. The teams you know and work with will remain the same. In terms of Mike specifically, he continues as the Webroot CEO until closing, and then will assist with the transition. And, you’re right, after closing John Post will become GM and SVP of Webroot within Carbonite. As for George Anderson, I don’t think we could get rid of him if we tried. He’s amazing and a Webroot institution!
Hey Nic,
Our support for OS-es remains the same as before the transaction. If you have a specific question, please let us know or contact support and they can address that.
There's been some questions regarding culture.
As I’ve said before, Carbonite definitely values not just our products and technology, but also our people. Our executive team has known the Carbonite team for a couple of years, and the CEO Mohamad Ali is particularly focused on growing a customer-centric culture. Both he and our CEO Mike Potts have remarked how similar our office environments and team dynamics are, and how we both have a commitment to customer success. In fact Norman Guadagno, Senior VP of Marketing at Carbonite, mentioned how similar the two companies are. He said, “It was sort of like we were siblings from different parents,” in a recent interview.
I know I will be a strong advocate for maintaining the strength of our culture, and learning from Carbonite’s.
As I’ve said before, Carbonite definitely values not just our products and technology, but also our people. Our executive team has known the Carbonite team for a couple of years, and the CEO Mohamad Ali is particularly focused on growing a customer-centric culture. Both he and our CEO Mike Potts have remarked how similar our office environments and team dynamics are, and how we both have a commitment to customer success. In fact Norman Guadagno, Senior VP of Marketing at Carbonite, mentioned how similar the two companies are. He said, “It was sort of like we were siblings from different parents,” in a recent interview.
I know I will be a strong advocate for maintaining the strength of our culture, and learning from Carbonite’s.
Hope we'll still see hinted at enhancements ...e.g.,
Script Shield, Anti-Exploit, defense against process hollowing, ELAM solution that will work hand in hand with Microsoft ELAM driver to offer maximum protection.
Script Shield, Anti-Exploit, defense against process hollowing, ELAM solution that will work hand in hand with Microsoft ELAM driver to offer maximum protection.
I posted a comment in the Webroot Community towards the end of last year about a data security service that I signed up with, I.e Zoolz - https://community.webroot.com/tech-talk-7/how-to-get-the-windows-10-october-2018-update-1809-330254/index3.html#post330699
I'm happy with it for my needs in data backup. :)
Yes, I noticed your post at the time. I chose CrashPlan PRO for my cloud archival backup with which I am very happy. I also use Dropbox to sync all the data across my different devices, Acronis to image my partitions, and from time to time a home-created Xcopy batch file to copy my data to a USB key.
By the way, I have bookmarked your backup provider for future reference. Thanks!
My experience with Support is neither as glowing as some in this Forum would claim nor as awful as you would say. Given my experience, I would describe it as respectably good, sometimes very good (and occasionally not very good).
Yes, no mention of profits. There would appear to be more here than meets the eye.
As I’ve said before, Carbonite definitely values not just our products and technology, but also our people. Our executive team has known the Carbonite team for a couple of years, and the CEO Mohamad Ali is particularly focused on growing a customer-centric culture. Both he and our CEO Mike Potts have remarked how similar our office environments and team dynamics are, and how we both have a commitment to customer success. In fact Norman Guadagno, Senior VP of Marketing at Carbonite, mentioned how similar the two companies are. He said, “It was sort of like we were siblings from different parents,” in a recent interview.
Interesting article ;)
Mohamad Ali the CEO of Carbonite is also a very interesting geyser. See this article: https://medium.com/authority-magazine/i-am-living-proof-of-the-american-dream-with-mohamad-ali-ceo-of-carbonite-851f0bd33c90
Having said that, you can't take away the terrible online customer reviews of Carbonite's product.
So my philosophy remains: wait and see.
I remember a story, many many years ago, when I was a user of a brilliant AV product made by a tiny company called Prevx. News came that it had been acquired by another company, Webroot. From everything I heard, Webroot was a failing company—above all, failing its customers.
It turned out that the CEO of that larger company had the vision to acquire that smaller company and then use its technology to entirely transform their own product. Let's hope, just hope, that it will be a similar kind of story this time round.
It turned out that the CEO of that larger company had the vision to acquire that smaller company and then use its technology to entirely transform their own product. Let's hope, just hope, that it will be a similar kind of story this time round.
Really, there is no point in speculating. I'm not a fan of Carbonite but I'm willing to sit still and wait to see what transpires. Meanwhile my suggestion is that we just get on with what was formerly being discussed: malware, issues with Webroot (i.e. a non-working ps mgr) and so forth. Speculation leads nowhere and could, in fact, be counter-productive.
Hi WR community and Team,
So I personally will have no problems with the merger as long as it doesn't affect WR from the consumer/home side. I can understand if this merger will mostly affect the business side or even just strengthen Webroot AV's protection capabilities, but I'm really concerning with how it will affect the consumer side of the application, it's interface/UI, and functionalities.
These are some questions I'd like to go over as time goes on and more information comes out. My questions are geared more towards the consumer side of Webroot's AV products.
Here are my biggest questions:
So I personally will have no problems with the merger as long as it doesn't affect WR from the consumer/home side. I can understand if this merger will mostly affect the business side or even just strengthen Webroot AV's protection capabilities, but I'm really concerning with how it will affect the consumer side of the application, it's interface/UI, and functionalities.
These are some questions I'd like to go over as time goes on and more information comes out. My questions are geared more towards the consumer side of Webroot's AV products.
Here are my biggest questions:
- Will the consumer side of the AV change? Will it still function essentially the same way just maybe with a new logo or something? There are features that I love about Webroot, espeially their scan logs. There are some nice stuff in the scan logs that are TOO VALUABLE for me to let go. Will I have to say goodbye to these features and funtionalities if a new AV will come out because of this merger?
- Once the merge is full, for the consumer antivirus, will we have to resintall the AV (my relatives and I have the AV on a BUNCH of computers) to something comptelely different or will it update seemleessly? Do we have to resintall to a completley different product or will it just update on its own when new patches roll out like it always has done?
- Some retail stores still sell discs, can those discs still be used in the future once the merger is full? Every year I have some relatives and friends who would buy licenses from a retail store (some stores have NICE sales and were timed perfectly to when they had to renew) and they were given discs every time. From what I know, the discs connect to WR servers anyway so 2016 discs still work in 2019 and install the latest version. Will this still be true once the merger is complete? There is a market that still prefers using discs (who can blame them).
Well.. I read the article regarding the reasons for the merger and if anything it did not reveal much other than Carbonite needs WR and the Enterprise is going to be the overwhelming focus of the new company. The rest I saw as just marketing hype. Thankfully I'm not tied in too deeply and can easily bolt to what my ISP offers. I I feel sad to see this happen but that is the reality of business today.
I disagree. I think the article talks about mutual benefits for both companies. And it speaks of the fact that the needs of the consumer and SMB are, in the final analysis, pretty well identical. It also speaks of an ultimate product (several years away) that will combine both data security and cyber security into one seamless package.
I think it tells us a great deal.
But whether things will pan out the way Ali tells us remains to be seen. And what to make of the awful customer online reviews of Carbonite continuing right up to today, I really don't know. So, as I say, my attitude is: wait and see.
I don't know, claudiu_x. As I see it, WR is being acquired and in time, changed by Carbonite. Will it be buried? Who can say? For consumers I don't see this as a good thing but for the enterprise, it will probably be a win. It's a business decision... pure and simple.
I disagree. I think the article talks about mutual benefits for both companies. And it speaks of the fact that the needs of the consumer and SMB are, in the final analysis, pretty well identical. It also speaks of an ultimate product (several years away) that will combine both data security and cyber security into one seamless package.
I think it tells us a great deal.
Maybe. But I think you're "seeing" what you want to see. It doesn't hurt most of us to just sit tight and wait which is why I fail to understand some who have declared they're now jumping ship; seems premature to me. Speculation is useless. We have no idea what is in store. The things declared in these releases by the companies are pure marketing hype. I pretty much disregard all of that as fluff for the masses.
Userlevel 7
+63
Was a nice try, with dedicated people, some of them beyond rational behavior (Triple Helix )
I am one of the first users ( claudiu ) who questioned Webroot , and despite being banned multiple times it seems I was all allong right!
claudiu
If you have been banned multiple times why are you back? Guess what's going to happen once again!
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