Notes from OpenText World, 2024
I was genuinely impressed with what I heard at OpenText World (Las Vegas, November 18-21, 2024) about their cybersecurity capabilities. It’s been about 18 months since they acquired Micro Focus, and they’ve clearly done a lot of integration work. More importantly, they’ve learned how to "speak cyber." The team includes some incredibly smart engineers and product managers from former Micro Focus product lines like Fortify, NetIQ, and ArcSight.
Not long ago, OpenText also acquired Pillr to strengthen their MDR (Managed Detection and Response) strategy. So, when Mark J. Barrenechea, their CEO and CTO, kicked off the conference with a message centered on “XDR as a service,” I thought, Yeah, they can pull this off.
A Healthy Dose of Analyst Skepticism
Let’s be real—conferences can sometimes feel like a Kool-Aid fest. You soak up the big ideas, but later, you have to dive into briefings, research, and discovery before forming a solid opinion. That said, I’ve been around the block enough to recognize when something has potential. And so far, I like what I see.
OpenText’s Evolution: The Fourth Wave
OpenText has long been synonymous with information management. In his keynote, Mark B. framed the company’s journey through four historical and future "waves," with cybersecurity firmly in the current and future-focused fourth wave. This aligns with their massive investments in AI tools, branded as “Aviators.”
OpenText's Cybersecurity and Content Management are closely intertwined.
Cyber threat detection and response and content management intersect in several meaningful ways, particularly as organizations manage increasing amounts of sensitive information and face evolving cyber threats. OpenText's cybersecurity vision for the fourth wave includes advanced threat detection, response capabilities, and AI-driven vulnerability analysis. The overarching theme of the OTW event—“Information Reimagined”—comes with a clear message: Let the machines do the work.
In OpenText’s view, the cyber war is becoming a machine-to-machine struggle, moving beyond human-versus-machine battles. Of course, those of us following AI developments know we’re not quite there yet. Humans still play (and should play) a critical role. But I appreciate how OpenText is preparing for this shift. During an analyst warm-up session, someone speculated we’re just a couple of years away from this reality. Maybe. Either way, OpenText seems ready to embrace the future.
Cybersecurity Joins Center Stage
Towards the end of the keynote, Mr. Barrenechea devoted some time to cybersecurity. It’s not their entire business, of course—by my estimate, it’s about 20-21% of their revenue. That’s just an educated guess, pieced together from old revenue charts from the HP and Micro Focus days.
Still, cybersecurity is clearly a strategic priority for OpenText. They’ve invested in leadership, like Stephan Jou, Senior Director of Software Engineering , who demoed their Threat Detection and Response dashboard. Jou’s pedigree includes co-founding Interset (a machine-learning cybersecurity firm backed by In-Q-Tel), which was eventually acquired by Micro Focus and then OpenText. It’s encouraging to see someone with deep cybersecurity experience driving this area.
By the way, did you know OpenText processes 2.1 billion events daily in their threat detection and response platform?
OpenText’s Cybersecurity Ecosystem
Think of what OpenText can ingest: asset discovery, endpoint, identity, network, and cloud telemetry. Their ecosystem includes partnerships with Microsoft, SAP, Google, AWS, and cybersecurity players like Palo Alto, CrowdStrike, and SentinelOne.
Think of what cybersecurity underpins in OpenText: information and content management across multiple business scenarios and the data orchestration layer, augmented by automation and artificial intelligence assistants (Aviators) and across all cloud environments. (See image, “Our Vision for Information Management” below.)
A key message I heard at the conference was, “OpenText makes multi-cloud work." That resonates. Their tools are designed to support multi-cloud environments, and cybersecurity naturally plays a critical role in protecting those environments. As they build connectors, APIs, datasets, and platforms, cybersecurity is an integral piece of the puzzle.
A Glimpse of the Future
During a separate cybersecurity keynote, Mario Daigle (Vice President, Enterprise Cybersecurity) and Brent Jenkins (Director of Product Marketing) outlined how OpenText plans to stitch everything together into an iterative process of layered protection and adaptive response. One slide in particular caught my attention, offering a teaser of where the company is headed with cybersecurity. (See image “OpenText Delivers A Layered Cybersecurity Defense” below.)
It’s still early days, but I like what I’m hearing. My process now is to dig deeper—schedule briefings, explore the roadmap, and see more demos of what’s built. But here’s the takeaway for you, whether you’re a buyer or a competitor: Don’t underestimate OpenText.
Micro Focus brought OpenText a massive legacy customer base—some of the largest corporations in the world—many of whom stick with the tools they know and trust. If OpenText can effectively package and communicate what they have—and it sounds like they’re intent on doing just that—they’ll be a force to be reckoned with in cybersecurity.
Stay tuned for more.
PS
If you know me, you know I don’t write anything overtly negative. But if you really know me, you also know how to read between the lines.
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