Not waiting for July 1 like the exec chairman stated in today's email. Bounced today. House of Cards starting to fall. Wait until the FY27 plans are shared more broadly. Going to be a lot of unhappy campers.
43 replies (most recent on top)
@j0 520 week low***
We are losing the wrong people.
@db
IMHO, my guess is this is a short term org move, like putting lipstick on a pig sort of thing.
This is to set up further downsizing (with out org chart shuffle) and putting a marketable (individual) face for potential buyers.
I could be wrong but OT in it's current form is going to be gone soon enough and the new CEO is coming in to execute the Boards agenda. The first example of this agenda was when they fired the entire CMO Leadership (ie: S. O, Joe M etc).
Just my observations.
@az Because Jenkins wanted to reward James for loyalty and purge the american remaining in the ELT
@ay BS. Ignorant and uninformed of how PE operate. They will not by this tu-d in that state. Also credit markets are constrained.
@mf less sales means less support which means less people and less money. But we tell people that AI and Automation are picking up the slack since we are in denial and trying to put a positive spin in things. Investing in products is the real answer but it’s to late for that so it’s easier to make excuses and have executives tell stories that try to keep the stock price up and/or make us an attractive acquisition. Either way, the board and executives stack the deck to ensure they win even if it means breaking the backs of employees to stay afloat. The problem is the even though there are less sales the customers are more angry and needed than ever. They smell our desperation. Improved products and sales are the best deodorant but right now we really stink. Paul was one of the executives with soap and keeping the shower going and now with him gone the water is off and the soap is running out.
@hw what's the new operating model for FY27 and why does it require less employees
@hw The newly appointed CEO is coming out of retirement, seemingly motivated by financial gain, yet lacks both industry recognition and a proven track record reflected in the absence of any uplift in the stock price following his announcement.
While he may appear active in the role, it’s likely he will serve more as a figurehead, ultimately taking direction from Shannon and specific individuals in the board.
@hw Losing Paul during a stock collapse and right before Ayman comes aboard is a sign of a total breakdown in board-level confidence.
The stock is at a 52-week low, having lost nearly 10% of its value in the last 48 hours alone.
The need to communicate this plan soon or things will get worse fast.
@hw anything to note around the SAP/partner side of the business?
Of note:
- McGourley is not staying long term. It's an assignment to stay for a specific time related to his stock options. There is a lot underway with special project with the goal of getting the stock price up (the goal is to double) by x date. There will be a lot of exits from leadership team then, all preplanned .
- P. Duggan was blindsided. That why he exited immediately It was not a pretty exchange.
- ADM and SMBC have buyers.
- Incoming CEO replacing many of the ELT. See 1 above.
- Very significant WFR in June. The FY27 operating model requires significantly less employees.
- New CEO is not a fan of Todd C.
@gr we were a once-smart company turning into a zombie. Tim is looking to make us highly profitable on paper, but intellectually hollow and eventually abandoned by the very customers and employees who built its success.
When R&D budgets are cut to fund sales commissions and the workforce is moved to cheaper regions, the established and experienced knowledge base evaporates. The result is outdated, underdeveloped products that sales then struggles to pitch to a frustrated base.
The gap between the Canadian ELT and us isn’t just widen, it becoming a canyon.
Paul, Muhi and Todd were trying to bridge that gap. But with Paul gone, Todd and Muhi become lame ducks and now it’s all about Shannon saving the company billions and looking for a private equity buyer in Canada.
@fx the issue is not sales, as an organisation we are meant to be a sales organisation but we aren’t. We are a SW technology company that doesn’t invest in products or support, cuts knowledge from established and experienced parts of the world to cheaper areas causing huge problems.
Sales are hamstrung by the inability to sell outdated underdeveloped products with poor support to existing customers who they have strong relationships with. The products are not meeting the desired roadmaps for the customers and we do not listen to them.
Add on top of this a renewals approach to sting customers on support renewals which causes huge upset and feelings of being held hostage that they then can’t wait to get away from, before passing those same customers back to sales and expecting to get more and new business from them.
Three sides of the business R&D, sales & renewals with completely different agendas wondering why it’s not working but held together somehow by some excellent people led by out of touch execs.
Things can change but this change needs to be led by sales to grown the market and R&D / product development to deliver products and solutions customers desire.
@fq They are trusting the wrong people to take us forward. Sales is all about their commission checks. The path ahead is to turn on prem maintenance into cloud and pay sellers on every dollar even if it doesn’t grow the company. There’s only one winner here and it’s Todd and his sales team. Tom either doesn’t care about the long run or doesn’t see the truth and is not getting good insight from people that know. There’s a million times more effort being put into reorganizing sales next year than there is on innovation. This is a losing proposition and investors are not going to trust us ever again. We are cutting out people that could have helped and handing the company to sales who will stop at nothing to pay more commissions even if we fail. This will be painful for those of us left to do more with less support and to pay for all the people they need to layoff to afford the new sales commissions. What a joke of an ending to a once smart company. Now everyone in power is going to milk this thing until it dies leaving all us poor worker bees to fend for ourselves.
@fc I agree. I don’t get the announcement by Tom. Not that James should be out but my understanding is most customers are not in Canada, why do you want your old leader for this function back there. I’m pretty sure the business is performing a lot better now than it ever was before. So confusing!
This news really su-ks. What a let down. Canada first mindset. They got this one really wrong.
He was a patriot, so sad he is now gone
@dt @cd knows exactly what they are talking about. I have witnessed it first hand. His team is useless. That’s a representation of the leadership ie. JF. The cloud business could be so much more profitable if JF had a clue. It’s worse off now than when SB ran it during his first stint with Open Text.
@cd Not true. JF is a shining star with customers and handles some of our toughest challenges. You don't know what you're talking about.
@dj that is not true at all. he 100% cared about OT, our customers, and growing the business. that is the problem. you must be in sales. dont worry next year you will not have any opposition so go wild and burn the house down to get paid. the inmates are running the asylum. this place is becoming microfocus.
$21.96 and dropping...
He will be no big miss, the only play I ever seen him execute or signing off on, was tax the install base while decreasing the the level of support. We are starting to see that play out now with more and more end users reaching that tipping point and pivoting to competitor solutions. How can someone in leadership oversee a strategy of making your install base pay more than net new for the same product?
Ah Damn!
Shannon and her team is big boss now. CIO, CTO, CCO, Product all on her basket now.
Richmond Hill office will have her Name on the building top now.
@a8 In my little corner of heaven here, anyone added or replaced in the last two years has been based in Canada, in an office.
@cd Paul is a strategic thinker/leader and the board wants pawns like Joe and Jim who are like Ted Baxter or Ron Burgundy reading a teleprompter. Stay classy OpenText and always ask “is this good for the company?”
All these moves are simply to make board members and investors richer in the short term while running the company to the ground. You need followers not leaders to achieve that with employees that stay since it’s near impossible to find a new corporate job in this AI bubble.
@ab Joe F is one of the biggest losers. He has no clue on CS, Customers and nor does his leadership team. None of this team spells customer success!
@ar Yep, we are betting the farm on a Teradata strategy, executed by someone that has been here barely 2 years???! At most TC only stays 1-3 years with a company since leaving MSFT. He didn’t stick around to even see the result of the last cloud transformation he ran. It didn’t go well.
Why is all this happening before the ceo joins. Wouldn’t you want to make these decisions yourself??? Sign of things to come and reminder who’s really in charge.
@OP why will people be unhappy with the 2027 plans ?
@ay what is this completely new model ?
This was a bad decision and a big set back in the long run. How is putting James back into his old role moving us forward??? We are going back in time. They should have put him in charge of Canada. The customers are in the US and Europe! And who is making the decisions before the new CEO starts. The board can hire and fire anyone they want?
OpenText is being dressed up for a sale to private equity. Paul Duggan is out today, and we are looking at a 15–20% reduction in June alongside a completely new model in July, this isn't just standard corporate optimization. It’s a radical restructuring designed to maximize EBITDA margins and simplify the balance sheet, classic pre-sale maneuvers.
The private equity gut and flip sale is the most cold-blooded but logical explanation for a move this aggressive. If the plan is truly to cut 15–20% of the workforce while simultaneously delayering middle management, we are looking at a textbook Private Equity value creation playbook.
In this gut and flip scenario, the usual suspects in the Private Equity world for a deal of this size (OpenText has a ~$6B+ market cap) would be firms like Thoma Bravo, Bain Capital, or Silver Lake. They specialize in taking a legacy software giant, stripping it to its core profitable assets, and flipping it to a strategic buyer or back to the public market as a leaner AI-play.
Thanks Mark!
@aw agreed Shannon has her own agenda and James and Tom’s ear. Next will be Muhi then Todd with their replacements being in the GTA. This was a better company when Renee, Paul and Prentiss were all influential leaders. Sad++
Shannon likely played a role in Paul’s departure she was instrumental in Savinay's exit and now appears to have influenced his as well. It seems she is trying to become Mark++. Unfortunately, her experience in building or scaling a product-focused company seems limited, with little track record to support it
@aq 100%. Way more of a leader than Todd C and Shannon B combined. TC has to be next or we are doomed.
@am agreed, Paul cares about people. This is a huge loss. He will be missed and OpenText will never be the same. This is canary in the coal mine. The good days are in the past.
He was 100% one of the good ones. It’s a huge loss for us.
How does it feels to be layoff, Paul ?
Soon as you were free
Will it ever be
Where is the love?
He is still on the website https://www.opentext.com/about/leadership
Joe F must be worried. Wonder if there is a Customer Success Plan that can solve this.