Carbonite aims to become the dominant player in data protection, and acquisitions like Mozy are a key part of their growth plans.

Security vendor Carbonite has announced another acquisition, with the news late Tuesday that they have entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Mozy from a subsidiary of Dell Technologies. It marks another development in a consistent strategy to build up Carbonite’s brand and market share, on the heels of their acquisitions last year of Double-Take Software and Datacastle, and their purchase of eVault from Seagate in late 2015.

“We have a very clear strategy to become THE data protection platform of choice for every segment of the market over the long term,” said Norman Guadagno, Carbonite’s SVP of Marketing. “Our strength in the midmarket and upper midmarket segment continues to grow. What we saw here is an opportunity to take a company that has been in business for 13 years, and which is similar to Carbonite in many ways, and grow our presence in these similar markets.”

Mozy and Carbonite are frequently head-to-head competitors, and this deal – unlike Carbonite’s other recent acquisitions – is principally about expanding that core base.

“This deal is about acquiring more customers and the ability to cross-sell to them,” Guadagno said. “In contrast, eVault was more about expanding our presence upmarket. Double-Take provided important new technology for our business.”

Mozy has a smaller customer base than Carbonite – currently approximately 35,000 business customers and 100,000 consumers. Their customer base reflects the fact that like Carbonite, they started as a consumer backup provider and then transitioned into the business market.

“Their customer base has a large amount of midmarket customers, along with some enterprise,” Guadagno said. “We see that as a strong market which we can introduce them to our full platform with its large scalable cloud infrastructure.”

Both the commercial and consumer customer base from Mozy will find a home at Carbonite, Guadagno stressed. Both will benefit from being part of a company that is completely focused on the data protection space.

“Over the last several years, Carbonite has emphasized that we are a business solution company, and have focused on business customers,” he said. “That being said, we continue to have quite a number of consumer customers, who renew at a regular rate. The distinction between consumer and business customers is somewhat artificial in that they have the same fundamental needs. What differs is the price point and the RPO/RTO they need. The consumer isn’t as demanding there, and is willing to wait a bit to get their data back. Businesses on their other hand require High Availability, and can’t afford to be down at all. We will be able to give both great options as they look to the future and the dangerous environment for those who need to protect data.”

Mozy has about 2000 channel partners.

“Many of these will overlap with our own channel, but not all of them do, so we will be strengthened there.” Guadagno said. “Mozy, like Carbonite, has also had a public eCommerce presence in the past, and we will determine the best way to do that going forward. It’s all a big field of opportunity, with more partners, and broader access to channels.”

With past acquisitions, Carbonite has integrated the new solutions rapidly, and their original branding swiftly disappeared. Because this deal has not yet closed – it is subject to regulatory approval and is expected to close at some point this quarter – Carbonite cannot comment yet on specific details of the integration.

Guadagno did indicate, however, that this is unlikely to be the last competitor that Carbonite buys.

“We will continue to grow both organically and inorganically,” he stressed. “We have a terrific M&A team that has a sharp eye for assets which may be overlooked, or which may be underinvested in, as well as those who could give us real competitive differentiation.”