Multibillion-dollar Canadian software vendor sets sights on UK market

OpenText appoints QBS Software as distributor with GDPR driving demand

Canadian vendor OpenText has renewed its focus on the UK market, signing QBS Software as its only distributor for the market.

The firm specialises in enterprise information management (EIM), and is publicly listed on the NASDAQ.

Dave Stevinson (pictured, with OpenText EMEA channel director Erik Moller), managing director of QBS, explained that OpenText had snapped up a number of its small vendor partners in recent years and that the opportunity to partner "made sense".

QBS will promote a range of the EIM vendor's product categories, including enterprise connectivity, collaboration and secure document access, business intelligence solutions and development tools.

"They've still got their direct business but they have realised the value of the channel and, as a distributor, there are things that we can do much more quickly than them," Stevinson explained.

"There are a lot of smaller licences and projects that need fulfilling, coupled with the reach we have to access certain resellers - it's a more cost-effective, efficient way of doing business."

The vendor has already set up the distributor with six "primary" partners in the UK, and Stevinson expects to boost this number to 15 over the next year. He has his eyes set on Computacenter, Softcat, SCC and Bytes, among others.

Stevinson told CRN that to the best of his knowledge, QBS is the only OpenText distributor in the region, though Nuvias - under its previous Wick Hill name - has worked with it in the UK market in the past.

Ian Kilpatrick, executive VP of cybersecurity at Nuvias, confirmed that it distributes OpenText's Hummingbird connectivity solutions product, but said that contract would soon be ending by mutual agreement.

In the past few years, OpenText has acquired the customer communications management division from HP Inc and Dell EMC's enterprise content division.

In August, it reported a 23 per cent year-on-year revenue increase to $2.8bn (£2.2bn) for its financial 2018.

OpenText has a global staff of around 12,000, and offices in 70 countries, including one in Reading. It has complemented that office with a larger base in central London, to be closer to customers, according to Stevinson.

The distie boss also stated that GDPR is playing a large role in the vendor's renewed focus on the UK market.

"When I asked them why they had grown so much recently, they said GDPR has helped them grow an awful lot," he said.

"And they are focusing so much on the UK market at the moment because it is the ‘home of the enterprise'. A lot of large enterprise customers are here and that is why they want to be here."