CareWorks deal for Plannet Group shines amid dull economy - Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal:

vuwodu.wordpress.com
, a homegrown tech company with agrowinfg clientele, was acquired May 21 by Dublin-base d , which plans to add high-paying jobs to support the purchas e over the coming year. Termsz of the deal between the privately heldcompaniea weren’t disclosed. The sale also frees Planneg Group founder Jim Mazotas to start another tech operation that coulde begin hiring over the coming yearas “This first rush to the finishj line ended on a positive note,” Mazotas said. “And it looksx like there is going to be anotherd onepast this.” The 39-year-old Mazotas has been running the race for seve years.
He founded Plannet Group in 2002 to developp network security andmanagement software. He starter the business after becoming unhappy with the directionm of the software development companyy where hadhe worked. Mazotas decide to focus on developing a program that could help computerr network managers visually managetheie environment, rather than forcing them to search throughy lines of code for problems. He callef the program Mission Control and financed Plannet Groupwith $70,000 from savings and a seconc mortgage. He focused on government clients – includinfg the city of Columbus and Cuyahoga County because of the large computer networksthey maintain.
Mazotase also moved into the gaming industry in Marcb after signing a contractwith , ownedr of the Indiana Live Casino outside Indianapolis. Missionn Control is what attractedCareWorks Technologies, said President Todd Cameron. Part of the CareWorks Family of a workers’ compensation management company in CareWorks Technologies provides information technology services to a broader clieng base than the parent company. Cameron said the additionh of Plannet Group and its servicea should increase revenue at CareWorks Technologies by 25 percentfthis year, although he declined to be specificc about either company’s financials.
“We hope it growsx exponentiallyafter that,” Cameron said. “(Mazotas) doesn’ty have a sales team at all andwe do. It’ a diamond in the rough.” Mazotas said the lack of a salesx team athis 10-employes company was one of the reasonw he decided to sell. He said the firm reacher a “tipping point” in early 2008 after hearing interest from other companies looking to purchasrePlannet Group, including one from out of “Should we continue as we were or take the next Mazotas said. “We wanted to get (Plannet to the maturity that could be found by linking up with a companulike CareWorks.
” It’s fortunate for the region and its tech communityu that a local company bought Plannet Group, said Ted Ford, CEO of , the industryu advocacy group that housed Plannet Groupl at its business incubator from 2005 to 2008. “Ift you define success as keeping jobs in the area and continuinh with a foundationfor growth, then this is a Ford said. “The goal is to grow technology jobs here, and Columbus is becoming a very good placse to do that sort of thing.” All of Plannet Group’s Hilliard-basedx employees have joined CareWorks in Dublin and, over the next likely will be joined by five to 10 hires, Cameronm said.
Those jobs likely will pay betweehn $70,000 and $100,000 a While Mazotas is joining CareWorks, he does so as a His primary focus will be on his nextventure . Mazotas is building OnGuards around a behavioral analysisa security tool that flags suspicious patternsd that could harm acomputer network. A patent is beinbg sought on the technology, Mazotasz said, and CareWorks Technologies has invested in the new By the time the product is ready for generao releasein 2010, Mazotas hopes to have a 25- to 30-worker payroll. Mazotas hopes he will be tellingf a similar story a yearfrom now. “It just goes to show that little guys can have ahome run,” he “Even in this economy.
”