Days after the Waterloo, Ont.-based enterprise software company completed its US$5.8 billion acquisition of Micro Focus and announced it will cut about eight per cent of the combined workforce, Mark Barrenechea told The Logic that the layoffs are “due to the natural course of an acquisition” and “not due to growth.” “Like any other acquisition, you have duplicative things,” he said. Barrenechea spoke in an interview after ringing the Nasdaq’s opening bell at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. (The Logic)

Talking point: As my colleague Murad reported in August, Barrenchea said “there have been a lot of tech companies announcing layoffs … we are not doing that,” about a week before OpenText announced it would buy the British software firm. On Friday, he also said the company is still open for acquisitions and looks to grow up to 35 per cent with M&A and organic growth over the next year. With new product offerings from the acquisition, Barrenechea said OpenText will “double down” on enterprise security, integrate AI visualization into databases and “open up a whole new set of use cases around smart cities, transportation, drones and satellite” with voice and facial recognition tools.