According to multiple sources, Good Technology, a company that sells mobile device management services, has laid off more than 100, and perhaps as many as 140 of its staff. According to LinkedIn, the company has more than 1,000 employees, making it a significant reduction to its workforce, if the rumor is correct.
Good Technology filed for a $100 million IPO in May of last year. Its financial data at the time showed a company with quickly growing revenue, and losses. Its cash supply was not particularly high compared to its net losses, which made the timing of its offering reasonable — the company was looking for capital.
Its IPO was delayed, caught in the same vortex that pushed Box to delay its offering. Good Technology raised $80 million more from private markets in September.
According to the latest company filings from December 19th last year, revenue was up and sales and marketing spending remained flat, all good signs for the company. In fact, an industry source told TechCrunch that this layoff was not about revenue, but what this person called “investor right-sizing.” In other words, even though they had a good quarter, the investors feel the company needs to run leaner going forward.
One possible red flag, however was the cash amount in the latest filing. In spite of the cash influx in September, the paperwork showed just $38.9M cash on hand.
Good is part of the mobile device management market (MDM), which is supposed to help companies secure mobile phones at a time when employees are bringing their own devices to work, a trend that has been labeled BYOD. The ability to track these devices is especially important as workers do a variety of personal and work tasks on the same phone, making it all the more challenging and crucial that organizations figure out a way to secure them. That’s where MDM tools come in.
Good’s competitors include the likes of MobileIron and AirWatch. It’s worth noting that there has been a great deal of consolidation in this space over the last couple of years, starting when Citrix bought Zenprise in January, 2013, followed by IBM grabbing Fiberlink in November that year and VMware acquiring AirWatch last January. According to IDC, MobileIron and AirWatch are the big dogs in this space, with Good, Citrix and IBM in the second tier.
It’s important to remember back when BlackBerry ruled the enterprise pre-2010, this was BlackBerry’s world and everyone else was secondary, but they have dropped well back in the pack now, according to IDC.
According to a source with a great deal of knowledge of the enterprise mobile market, Good was strong between 2007 and 2010, especially in financial markets, and had success going up against BlackBerry when companies began moving to iOS, Android or Windows phones. This source suggests they are slipping, and losing a lot of accounts right now (which could account for layoffs).
In a lengthy statement emailed to TechCrunch, a Good spokesperson did not deny the layoff rumors, but neither did she respond directly to the question.
Here is Good’s response to our inquiry:
Good has raised over $293M to-date over 6 investment rounds, according to Crunchbase. The company has also made 8 acquisitions including three last year as it tries to position itself to compete with the other players in the space.
