Carbonite’s Lewiston office on Mollison Way. Sun Journal file photo

LEWISTON — Carbonite Inc.’s local call center will move out of the space above Sparetime bowling and into new, free-standing quarters later this year, but not much else will change in the wake of its sale to OpenText, according to OpenText’s executive vice president of customer operations.

“Technology companies are built on people,” James McGourlay said Monday. “We continue to see a long-term position in the community for us.”

He visited the 150-employee Mollison Way office last week, coming from OpenText’s headquarters in Waterloo, Ontario.

The larger tech company closed on its $1.45 billion purchase of Carbonite on Dec. 24.

Four Carbonite shareholders sued last month to stop the sale, two of them asking for class action consideration. Three of the suits were withdrawn Dec. 19, the last on Jan. 2, according to district court filings in Delaware and Colorado.

Carbonite, which specializes in data protection and backup, opened a Lewiston office shortly after it announced it was bringing back call center jobs from overseas in 2011.

Advertisement

McGourlay said Carbonite will keep its name. He expects employees here to move into new space in Lewiston this summer.

“They’re taking what we consider the second- and third-level calls and that’s what they’re continuing to do,” he said. “We’re growing that area and all indications are the team has been doing really well with that. Carbonite was very happy with them and we’re carrying that forward. They’re doing a great job there for us.”

OpenText operates globally with 15,000 employees. McGourlay said he’s responsible for 3,500 customer support people who operate out of 60 offices worldwide.

“We have a number of centers in the same scale as Lewiston, that 120 and above range, this is something that fits right into our wheelhouse,” he said. “There’s definitely opportunities across the board, but we’re also very specific that Lewiston is focused on our Carbonite customers.”

An 80-hour free training course kicked off Monday at Central Maine Community College in partnership with Carbonite, CMCC, Maine Department of Labor and Maine Adult Education teaching technical support professional skills, a collaboration in motion before the sale.

“We’re hopeful to hire many participants, but there is no obligation to work for Carbonite for any of the participants, and we see this as a very positive skills development opportunity for the community,” said OpenText spokesman Chris Plunkett. “Five people are starting the first class today. If it goes well, we hope to expand it over time up to 15 people, which is what the tech lab can accommodate, three times (per) year.”


Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.

Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.

filed under: