Friday, February 28, 2014
Websense To Move 470 Jobs To Texas
San Diego-based cybersecurity developer Websense announced Friday that it is officially moving its headquarters to Austin, Texas, and moving 470 jobs to the city. The move--which was announced earlier this month by Texas Governor Rick Perry--comes after a concerted effort by Texas to convince Websense, and its new private equity owners Vista Equity, to relocate its headquarters. Texas is providing a $4.5M grant to Websense--plus incentives worth around $438,000--to move Websense to Austin, as a bid to increase jobs in that city.
The move is part of a one-two-three punch to the San Diego technology community, as two Vista Equity-owned technology companies have been moved to Texas in as many weeks. Vista Equity owns Websense, along with Omnitracs, which is also moving to Texas. Another, Vista Equity owned San Diego company--Active Network--recently announced the sale and split of its business products group, which it is merging with another Vista Equity owned company, Lanyon--also based in Texas. It has not been a great few weeks for San Diego's technology jobs market: yesterday, Sony Electronics, another big employer in San Diego also announced a big cut of employees, letting 400 go at its location in the city.