OpenText will create a new “powerhouse” small-medium business (SMB) market leading platform through a $860 million deal to acquire Zix, announced today, while also boosting its partnership with Microsoft, said OpenText CEO and CTO Mark Barrenechea.

“We intend to integrate Carbonite, Webroot and Zix products to create a powerhouse SMB platform for data protection, threat management, email security and compliance solutions,” Barrenechea said in a statement. “Acquisitions of cloud growth assets like Zix highlights our commitment to our total growth strategy and approach to cash-based returns.”

Zix last year expanded its product suite into Microsoft Office 365 backup with the purchase of cloud-based data backup and recovery provider CloudAlly. Buying Israel-based CloudAlly for $30 million has helped Zix customers safeguard Office 365, Google Workspace, SharePoint, OneDrive, Salesforce, Dropbox and Box with backup and recovery from any point in time with unlimited data retention.