Articles - Page 171

The Top 10 AI Tools for Small Business: From Automation to a Coordinated Team of AI Agents

matt-garrepy

Strap yourself in, because <a href="http://strapi.io/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Strapi</a> has some big news. 
The open source headless CMS vendor just announced that it has raised $31 million in Series B funding led by <a href="https://www.crv.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CRV</a> – bringing the company’s total funding to $45 million. Flex Capital and Index Ventures also participated in the round along with new angel investors including former Github CEO, Nat Friedman, Algolia co-founder Nicolas Dessaigne, and Netlify CEO, Matt Billmann Christensen. 
As tech enterprises mull the realities of a souring global economy, Strapi seems bullish about its future prospects. And why not? With 45,000 stars on GitHub, 750 contributors, and 7 million downloads, Strapi is clearly establishing its position as a premier headless CMS in a growing sea of commoditized competitors. 
“This round speaks volumes about Strapi’s rapid adoption among developers who need a content management system customizable enough to overcome the complexity associated with a long tail of use cases that works across more and more devices, formats, sources, and stakeholders,” said Pierre Burgy, CEO, Strapi. “It gives us the opportunity to continue building a sustainable business and invest in the development of the Strapi open source community and ecosystem. Most importantly, it will enable us to deliver on our mission of empowering millions of people to share and manage any content, anywhere.”
“Finding a content management system that delights developers and allows them to move fast while providing the content managers with a high level of autonomy remains a challenge for many companies,” said Reid Christian, general partner at CRV. ”With its developer-first approach based on open source and customization, Strapi is uniquely positioned to solve that challenge for many companies across a large range of applications and use cases.”
<h2>Delivering composable solutions with headless CMS</h2>
Founded in May 2016 as a school project by Pierre Burgy (CEO), Aurélien Georget (chief product officer), and Jim Laurie (chief user success officer), Strapi is a leading open source headless CMS. The platform is in use across a wide range of industries and at many Fortune 500 companies such as AT&amp;T, eBay, IBM, and Toyota.
More than ever, composability seems to be the essential ingredient for building modern digital experiences. According to Strapi's press release, more than 25,000 companies use its CMS to save countless hours developing future-proof applications – making content management more composable and collaborative.
To bolster its composable posture, Strapi has embraced a marketplace strategy that has already amassed more than 2,000 plug-ins and providers to date. To navigate this massive and open ecosystem, Strapi announced the launch of its <a href="https://market.strapi.io/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Strapi Market</a>, giving users the option to leverage new features or integrations as part of their projects. 
<h2>Scaling success in the Strapi Cloud</h2>
At this year's <a href="https://conf.strapi.io/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">StrapiConf 2022</a>, the company revealed plans to launch Strapi Cloud – a new solution for easily deploying, hosting, and scaling Strapi projects. The PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service) approach embraces the company’s open source DNA while preserving Strapi’s unique customization capabilities. 
With Strapi Cloud, the company is offering a seamless deployment process that enables developers to start their project locally, customize it according to their needs, version it through Git, and deploy it in seconds.
General availability for Strapi Cloud is planned for 2023. In the meantime, anyone interested in the company's beta program can <a href="https://strapi.io/cloud" target="_blank" rel="noopener">join the waitlist</a>.
To learn more about Strapi’s vision for the future of Content Management, go to: <a href="https://strapi.io/blog" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://strapi.io/blog</a>.
<h2>About Strapi</h2>
Strapi is the leading open-source headless CMS: 100% JavaScript, extensible, and fully customizable. Strapi enables developers to build projects faster by providing a customizable API out of the box and giving them the freedom to use their favorite tools. Content teams use Strapi to autonomously manage all types of content and distribute it from one CMS to any channel including websites, mobile apps, or connected devices. The remote company has employees in more than 10 countries and is scaling its team globally. To learn more, visit <a href="http://strapi.io/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">strapi.io</a>.
<h2>About CRV Ventures</h2>
CRV is a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage tech startups. Since 1970, the firm has invested in more than 500 startups at their most crucial stages, including Airtable, DoorDash and Vercel. Founders need more than capital to build a great company.

Strapi Secures $31 Million in Series B Funding, Plans to Enhance Open Source Headless CMS and Deliver Cloud Platform

paris-tuzun

With a name like <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/tag/storyblok/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Storyblok</a>, we expect a good story.
That's exactly what we received yesterday when the headless CMS player <a href="https://www.storyblok.com/mp/storyblok-s-technology-ecosystem" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> the launch of its new <a href="https://www.storyblok.com/partners/technology-ecosystem" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Technology Ecosystem</a> – a curated collection of <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/tag/mach/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">MACH</a>-ready technology solutions that can be integrated together with Storyblok as the central content hub. 
According to Alin Tanase, Technology Partner Manager at Storyblok, having a dedicated Technology Ecosystem was the "missing piece of the puzzle" in the company's growing partnership program. Building it from the ground up and relying on agency experience helped Storyblok see the gap and identify the potential. 
<h2>A MACH-driven technology ecosystem </h2>
The Storyblok Technology Ecosystem provides a ready-made set of integrations for e-commerce, localization, deployment and hosting, personalization, marketing, analytics, and more – allowing businesses to build successful digital experiences across channels with best-of-breed, composable technology. 
Launched in 2015, Storyblok has embraced the principles of MACH (Microservices, API-first, Cloud, and Headless) from day one. Having <a href="https://www.storyblok.com/mp/storyblok-joins-the-mach-alliance" target="_blank" rel="noopener">joined the MACH Alliance</a> last November, Storyblok believes the future belongs to marketplaces that are built with MACH in mind – and its new ecosystem reflects a continued commitment to the tenants of building scalable MACH architectures. 
The new Technology Ecosystem provides integrations for some of the biggest names in e-commerce, including <a href="https://www.bigcommerce.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">BigCommerce</a>, <a href="https://www.netlify.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Netlify</a>, <a href="https://cloudinary.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Cloudinary</a>, <a href="https://commercetools.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">commercetools</a>, <a href="https://spryker.com/en/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Spryker</a>, <a href="https://www.shopify.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Shopify</a>, <a href="https://lokalise.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lokalise</a>, <a href="https://www.vuestorefront.io/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">VueStorefront</a>, <a href="https://ninetailed.io/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Ninetailed</a>, <a href="https://www.algolia.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Algolia</a>, <a href="https://instantcommerce.io/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Instant Commerce</a>, <a href="https://www.centra.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Centra</a>, <a href="https://www.scayle.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">SCAYLE</a>, and <a href="https://vercel.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Vercel</a>. The library features add-ons and plug-ins to Storyblok's API-driven CMS to extend its functionality, increase its value, and deliver a best-of-breed, future-proof platform designed to fit any need. 
"We want to offer businesses a strong ecosystem of powerful API-led technologies to support the growth of their digital offerings," said <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/barrydarcy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Barry D'Arcy</a>, VP of Partners at Storyblok. "Partnering with other best-in-class solutions allows us to co-innovate and deliver better digital outcomes." 
We had the chance to connect with D'Arcy last year, and he <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/interview-headless-cms-storyblok-expands-partner-program-with-u-s-agency-campbell-ewald/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">shared some of his views</a> on the CMS market and the value of being headless.
<h2>Powering the future with Jamstack and cloud technology partnerships</h2>
According to analyst firm <a href="https://www.forrester.com/bold" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Forrester</a>, the future of digital experiences lies in ecosystems. They recommend picking an ecosystem rather than just a single vendor, as innovation through such communities will help organizations gain speed, agility, and resilience.
Storyblok seems to be squarely focused on this vision. While the company provides a vendor-specific headless CMS platform, the development of a corresponding technology ecosystem will help expand the value of its technology across a composable channel of options – enabling users to build in multiple directions without the persistent challenge of monolithic vendor lock-in. 
<a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-jamstack-static-site-generators-for-2021/">Jamstack</a> will play a crucial role in the new technology ecosystem, which is evidenced by comments from Netlify – a key partner in this new initiative. "Jamstack is an approach to build for the web that has generated a large global community and movement over the past six years," said Sarfaraz Rydhan, Senior Director of Business Development at <a href="https://www.netlify.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Netlify</a>. "Netlify is focused on bringing the modern web community together and enabling the benefits of Jamstack with our platform alongside partners and customers. We are delighted to be part of Storyblok's Technology Ecosystem to help empower our customers to build better digital experiences with the Jamstack."
Storyblok is also offering integrations with infrastructure players like Cloudinary to power the management of digital video and media assets. "Cloudinary firmly believes in establishing relationships with other software companies that share our belief in headless, API-first software and composable technology," said Gary Ballabio, VP of Technology Partnerships at <a href="https://cloudinary.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Cloudinary.</a> "Which is why we're so excited to be a part of the Storyblok Technology Ecosystem."
You can visit the <a href="https://www.storyblok.com/partners/technology-ecosystem" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Technology Ecosystem</a> page to learn more and see the full list of partners.
<h2>About Storyblok</h2>
<a href="http://Storyblok – an enterprise headless CMS that enables developers and marketers to deliver powerful content experiences on any digital platform – today announced the launch of its Technology Ecosystem. This new program is a curated collection of MACH-ready technology solutions that can be integrated together, with Storyblok as the central content hub. The Storkblok Ecosystem is a curated collection of tech solutions that can be integrated together, with Storyblok at the center. It’s a universe of endless technology possibilities. Some of the technology partners include BigCommerce, Netlify, Cloudinary, Commercetools, Spryker, Shopify, Lokalise, VueStorefront, Ninetailed, Algolia, Instant Commerce, Centra, SCAYLE and Vercel. “We want to offer businesses a strong ecosystem of powerful API-led technologies to support the growth of their digital offerings. Partnering with other best-in-class solutions allows us to co-innovate and deliver better digital outcomes.” said Barry D'Arcy, VP of Partners at Storyblok. &quot;Jamstack is an approach to build for the web that has generated a large global community and movement over the past six years,&quot; said Sarfaraz Rydhan, Senior Director of Business Development at Netlify. &quot;Netlify is focused on bringing the modern web community together and enabling the benefits of Jamstack with our platform alongside partners and customers. We are delighted to be part of Storyblok's Technology Ecosystem to help empower our customers to build better digital experiences with the Jamstack.&quot; &quot;Cloudinary firmly believes in establishing relationships with other software companies that share our belief in headless, API-first software and composable technology - which is why we're so excited to be a part of the Storyblok Technology Ecosystem,&quot; said Gary Ballabio, VP of Technology Partnerships at Cloudinary." target="_blank" rel="noopener">Storyblok</a> is an enterprise headless CMS that enables developers and marketers to deliver powerful content experiences on any digital platform. Developers create flexible components that are independently managed by content teams through a collaborative visual editor and customizable workflow. Published content is delivered through an API, so changes are made once and will appear everywhere: websites, mobile, IoT, the metaverse, and beyond. This approach reduces maintenance and makes content management more efficient. Leading brands such as Adidas, Pizza Hut, and Marc O'Polo use Storyblok to manage and share their content with the world. Storyblok was named the #1 CMS for 2022 by G2.
For more information, visit <a href="https://www.storyblok.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.storyblok.com</a> and follow Storyblok on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/storyblok" target="_blank" rel="noopener">LinkedIn</a> and <a href="https://www.twitter.com/storyblok" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Twitter</a>.

Storyblok Launches New Technology Ecosystem Featuring MACH-Ready Solutions

CrafterCMS, an <a href="https://craftercms.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">open-source Git-based headless CMS</a> for enterprises, announced the general availability of its version 4.0 – which offers a number of new feature upgrades and composable capabilities. 
First and foremost, version 4.0 will allow users to work locally in teams via an API-powered Git repo. This gives developers greater control over versioning while enabling them to work in their preferred languages with their favorite tools and processes. According to Crafter, its flexible headless architecture provides everything a user needs to create modern digital experiences and connect to a wide array of omnichannel endpoints – including websites, mobile devices, kiosk screens, email, video, and more.
<h2>New features focused on composability</h2>
Version 4.0 includes three noteworthy upgrades. The first is a new <a href="https://docs.craftercms.org/en/4.0/developers/experience-builder.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Experience Builder</a> for composing digital experiences from reusable plug-ins and components. The Experience Builder also provides in-context editing and preview features that support all front-end technologies and any digital channels.
Along with Experience Builder, there's also the new Crafter Studio content authoring application, built-in React on top of CrafterCMS's API-first headless content authoring platform. According to the company, Crafter Studio enables content teams to create, edit, review, and publish faster and more productively than ever before.
Finally, Crafter has introduced a new plug-in framework and expanded marketplace, allowing developers to quickly build and easily maintain reusable components and back-end integrations.
"Our new content authoring tools enable content teams to easily compose any type of digital experience," said Russ Danner, VP of Products for CrafterCMS. "Through drag and drop experience building, in-context content creation and editing, and low-code/no-code reusable plug-ins in our expanded CrafterCMS Marketplace, enterprises can rapidly compose digital experience applications faster than ever before. With CrafterCMS version 4.0, we've built a best-in-class content authoring experience delivering unprecedented capabilities for a headless CMS. Developers can build apps with any type of front-end technology, while content authors benefit from powerful and easy-to-use capabilities regardless of the technology or digital channel."
<h2>Improved plug-ins, "frictionless collaboration", and more</h2>
With version 4.0, CrafterCMS is providing enterprises with a modern headless CMS with composable digital experience platform (DXP) capabilities. For example, plug-ins may be used by administrators to compose tailored authoring experiences for a variety of content management use cases and by content creators to compose engaging digital experiences for end-users.
CrafterCMS version 4.0 also improves on its Git-based content repository as well as support for its DevContentOps processes – enabling what it calls "frictionless collaboration" between content authors, developers, and operations. The types of digital experiences powered by the headless CrafterCMS platform at major enterprises today include large-scale personalized enterprise websites, global e-Commerce sites, OTT video experiences, native mobile apps, employee intranets, customer and partner portals, digital assistants, digital signage, AR/VR experiences, among others.
CrafterCMS version 4.0 community edition is available immediately for free download under the GPL v3 open source license, and the enterprise edition is available for customers and certified partners through the CrafterCMS <a href="https://docs.craftercms.org/en/3.0/get-support/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">customer support portal</a>.
The announcement of version 4.0 comes on the heels of the second round of financing that Crafter closed on this past March. We had the opportunity to <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/craftercms-announces-second-round-of-financing-to-fuel-rapid-growth-interview-with-ceo-mike-vertal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">interview Mike Vertal</a>, CEO of CrafterCMS, shortly after the investment news about the company's plans for the future.
<h2>About CrafterCMS</h2>
CrafterCMS replaces the broken paradigm of traditional content management and enables a new era of fast, agile, and easier development of innovative digital experiences that benefits large enterprises and fast-growing startups. As an open-source, API-first, and Git-based headless platform, CrafterCMS is amazing for developers, easy for content authors, and fantastic for DevContentOps. Enterprises can choose from support options that include self-hosted/self-managed, fully-managed private SaaS/PaaS in the cloud, and community-supported open source. Learn more about the open source project at <a href="https://craftercms.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://craftercms.org</a>, and enterprise solutions at <a href="https://craftercms.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://craftercms.com</a>.

CrafterCMS Releases Version 4.0, Adds API-Powered Git Capabilities and Composable Features

Image of CrafterCMS logo against a black background

The month of May is a wrap, and it was in full bloom with events – both live and virtual. In the last 30 days, we saw a bevy of industry meetings, product user groups, and lively sessions that seemed to coordinate around the same four-week period.
Talk about spring conference fever. 
In the mele, there were two that really stood out for our staff. The first was <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/netlify-to-host-headless-commerce-summit-for-talks-on-building-world-class-e-commerce-experiences/">Netlify's Headless Commerce Summit</a>, where e-Commerce on the Jamstack was front and center.
We also took in a few sessions from Sanity's new <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/sanity-to-host-structured-content-2022-conference-in-u-s-europe-and-online/">Structured Content 2022 Conference</a>, where a few thousand content fans assembled across the globe to discuss... well, content. Structured Content was particularly interesting as it positioned itself as a "movement" within the industry, intently focused on educating and inspiring the cross-disciplinary community of people who work on digital experiences. 
Elsewhere, we tracked a story from <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/amplitude-announces-new-testing-and-analytics-tools-for-making-smarter-product-decisions-at-scale/">Amplitude</a> as they announced new testing and analytics tools for making smarter product decisions at scale. Spoiler alert: we have some additional news from Amplitude in this recap, as they seem to be on a roll. 
We also tracked a big <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/civicplus-enters-into-agreement-to-acquire-optimere/">announcement from CivicPlus</a> – an integrated tech platform that powers websites for local governments. In a stunning move, the company announced an agreement to buy Optimere, the parent company of Monsido (among others). The purchase will expand CivicPlus' capabilities by adding Monsido's accessibility scanning resources to its ecosystem. The added suite of features should provide public sector organizations with a one-stop solution for managing ADA-compliant web experiences. 
Before you turn your spring fever into summer blues, check out a few other stories we noted from across the digital experience landscape.
<h2>Contentstack launches its no-code Automation Hub, making composable content experiences easier to build</h2>
<a href="https://www.contentstack.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Contentstack</a>, a leader in the new headless CMS Content Experience Platform (CXP) category, unveiled its industry-first Automation Hub. Aimed at simplifying the deployment of composable architectures at any scale, Automation Hub allows marketing and IT to overcome the technical and operational hurdles of adopting a composable architecture. 
Contentstack launched the new capability on stage at its inaugural customer conference, <a href="https://info.contentstack.com/online-registration-contentcon-2022.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ContentCon</a>, which featured presentations from Levi’s, Dawn Foods, Golfbreaks, and other leading brands. Automation Hub is available now as part of Contentstack’s Platform Beta Program, with General Availability scheduled for late Summer 2022.
Composable architectures (or stacks) are emerging as the next evolutionary step for enterprises, allowing companies to create digital experiences faster while responding to rapidly-changing market demands and business threats. In a <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/3994550" target="_blank" rel="noopener">recent report by Gartner,</a> the analyst firm predicted that by 2023, organizations that adopt an intelligent, composable approach will outpace competitors by 80 percent when it comes to new feature implementation. 
Moving away from legacy monolithic systems often introduces technical complexity and operational challenges. Contentstack’s Automation Hub addresses both of these issues head-on by infusing simple, no-code business logic into the front-end of a composable stack.
“Using best-in-breed technologies is the only way to stay competitive, but enterprises often end up bogged down in integration hell," said Conor Egan, VP of product and engineering at Contentstack. "Implementing business logic today involves writing code that is often slow, brittle, and requires constant maintenance. Our Automation Hub solves this by allowing teams to build complex, cross-vendor connections visually without code. It is a true game-changer.” 
Contentstack is also championing the mantra of  "Connect without Compromise." This has become the centerpiece of a new program that combines Automation Hub with Contentstack’s Blueprints – a library of best practices and expert guides for composable experiences – and its recently launched <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/contentstack-launches-new-marketplace-to-accelerate-composable-digital-experience-innovation-from-weeks-to-minutes-301492844.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Marketplace</a>. Now, businesses of all sizes can fully embrace composable architectures at any scale with confidence, choosing either a ready-made composable solution based on industry best practices or leveraging the foundation to easily customize to their unique business needs. 
Contentstack's "Connect without Compromise" program is also a complement to its "<a href="https://www.contentstack.com/company/press/contentstack-expands-customer-support-launch-industry-first-cross-vendor-service-commitment-program/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Care Without Compromise</a>" program – a multi-vendor ecosystem designed to ensure cross-vendor support in composable environments. Through "Care without Compromise," Contentstack and its Catalyst partners cooperate, communicate, and cross-train support staff to ensure seamless delivery of joint solutions to customers globally. Now with both programs, businesses of all sizes can move to composable architectures at scale and with ease.
"At Contentstack, we are committed to organizations who choose to challenge the status quo and adopt a modern, composable approach to power their digital experiences," said Neha Sampat, founder and CEO of Contentstack. "Combining 'Connect without Compromise' and 'Care without Compromise' embodies this commitment. We take on the burden of making it easy to work across multiple vendors – from both a support and integration perspective – so you don't have to."
<h2>Amplitude announces new customer data platform, industry’s first "insights-driven CDP"</h2>
<a href="https://amplitude.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Amplitude</a>, Inc., a leader in digital optimization, announced the launch of Amplitude CDP, the first insights-driven customer data platform (CDP). Unlike other CDPs that require connecting to third-party analytics solutions, Amplitude CDP both collects and analyzes event data with its natively integrated industry-leading product analytics solution. 
With Amplitude CDP, product and marketing teams can proactively improve data quality, analyze and discover new audiences, and sync data across their marketing and data stack. Amplitude’s CDP – coupled with analytics – helps customers become more operationally efficient and enables better, faster decision-making to increase customer engagement.
The goal of a CDP is to collect data that lead to insights – and ultimately enable data-driven decision-making that improves customer experiences. After working with thousands of companies and analyzing over 1 trillion customer data points per month, Amplitude discovered critical unsolved challenges in the CDP market, which is currently estimated to reach $20.5 billion by 2027. 
Data that is not proactively managed reduces the quality of insights. The various teams that collect, analyze, and take action on customer data struggle to collaborate across multiple solutions – and maintaining both a CDP and Product Analytics solution leads to duplicative costs and implementations. With Amplitude CDP, customers now have an integrated suite to turn high-quality data into actionable insights.
Key benefits of Amplitude’s insights-driven CDP include:
<ul>
<li>Improved data quality: Data planning and governance are built-in to help data and engineering teams proactively maintain trust and quality.</li>
<li>Better audience discovery: Many CDPs move right from data collection to activation, offering segmentation but assuming companies know what audiences to target. Now, deep segmentation combined with analytics helps teams discover audiences based on insights, putting audience discovery before audience activation for maximum engagement.</li>
<li>Reduced costs and redundancies: With analytics natively integrated within Amplitude CDP, Amplitude eliminates duplicative costs for customers by providing a single platform that serves as the foundation for data, the engine for insights, and the driver for action.</li>
<li>Accelerated time-to-insights: Built-in analytics unites product, growth, and marketing around shared data to unlock insights and actions anywhere in the stack.</li>
</ul>
“Customer data platforms entered the market with the promise of making personalization a reality, but aggregating data is only step one," said Spenser Skates, CEO, and co-founder of Amplitude. "As companies look to provide tailored product experiences, they need trusted data that provides insights about their existing audiences and helps them identify new ones, all without unnecessary costs for their business. At Amplitude, we have spent the last few years helping customers solve the problems that existing CDPs in the market were unable to. With the launch of Amplitude CDP, we are now providing customers with the ability to provide meaningful, personalized experiences all from a single platform.”
For years, Amplitude has been introducing capabilities that help teams collect, manage, and activate customer data. More than 50% of Amplitude customers currently send data from Amplitude to other tools in their stack and Amplitude’s integration ecosystem has grown to more than 65 out-of-the-box connectors. Today, customers like Kahoot!, Hex, InvoiceSimple, Marco Polo, and Thrive Market are already using Amplitude CDP and have access to expanded capabilities to drive accurate, actionable insights.
Key innovations include:
<ul>
<li>Unified user interface (UI): Create a single taxonomy for all digital analytics use cases to collect and capture consistent data in one UI.</li>
<li>Event streaming: Federate data to martech, ad, and attribution vendors as well as data pipelines like Amazon Kinesis and Google Pub/Sub through a no-code configurable UI in the Data Connections catalog.</li>
<li>Real-time audience syncing: Match the cadence of marketing campaigns and use customer behavior to drive in-the-moment engagement with real-time syncs that refresh audience lists every minute.</li>
<li>Developer toolkit: Proactively collaborate with developers to define tracking plans with a best-in-class developer toolkit that saves engineers time and helps automate data validation with tracking libraries – no more typos, forgotten properties, or inconsistent naming conventions.</li>
</ul>
A <a href="https://www.cdpinstitute.org/learning-center/what-is-a-realcdp/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">RealCDP-certified</a> solution, Amplitude CDP is available to Amplitude customers in the early access program today and will be generally available later this year. Amplitude CDP will be free of charge for customers streaming fewer than 10 million events per month, an offer more than 10 times better than some of the leading CDPs in the market. 
<h2>Agility CMS expands composability through its marketplace</h2>
<a href="https://agilitycms.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Agility CMS</a>, a headless content management platform for creating powerful Enterprise ready digital experiences, has announced the expansion of its composability offerings – specifically through the launch of its new marketplace and the redevelopment of its app framework to support its marketplace applications.
By introducing these changes, the headless platform aims to simplify how users integrate with third-party APIs and how developers build new applications. Agility has also enhanced the user interface and editor experience of its CMS and added several new integrations, APIs, and pre-built models – all designed to help enterprises get up and running faster than ever.
More than ever, organizations are moving their products and services online. However, each company has its own unique requirements. To meet these needs, Agility CMS embraces the best-of-breed concepts of <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/mach-alliance-releases-study-on-adoption-of-mach-technologies-by-tech-leaders-qa-with-sonja-keerl/">MACH architecture and composability,</a> providing customers with a future-proof design that allows them to iterate and swap components as the customer journey evolves.
“High-growth companies rely on multiple cloud-based tools to help them solve problems quickly," said Agility CMS CTO Joel Varty. "As these businesses evolve, Agility CMS’ microservices architecture enables them to swap out the tools for what can better serve them at each new stage. We don’t want our customers to feel like they need to change how they do things. Instead, our composable approach enhances your business, helping to increase profits in the long term."
“We’ve noticed that customers are looking at their previous monolithic systems and recognizing that it can’t do everything they want it to, and it’s slow to roll out,” said Jon Voigt, CEO of Agility CMS. “We’ve always believed that customers should be able to tie together best-of-breed solutions as they see fit, and we’re happy that the industry and businesses today are recognizing the value of this approach,” he added.
Agility CMS’ long-standing position as a hybrid headless CMS with an intuitive content authoring experience has enticed forward-thinking brands from various industries, resulting in doubled sales in 2021.

CMS Monthly Recap: Contenstack Launches No-Code Hub for Composable Content Experiences, Agility CMS Expands Composability, and More

cms-critic-staff

Image of a spring field of dandelionsand hill under a large oak tree, with a bright sun peeking through. A small town can be seen in the distance. The CMS Critic Monthly Recap text and logo floats over the image at the center.

CivicPlus, the integrated tech platform for local governments, has announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Optimere, a leading provider of digital compliance, accessibility, and records management solutions. Upon closing, Optimere's ArchiveSocial, Monsido, and NextRequest solutions will be integrated with CivicPlus' comprehensive platform to create a better experience for residents and agencies that serve them.
CivicPlus provides integrated tech solutions that help local governments optimize digital interactions for residents and staff. According to the <a href="https://analytics.usa.gov/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statistics</a>, government websites get an average of 2 billion visits each month. Unfortunately, government websites are known for being slow, outdated, and generally a pain in the rear to use and navigate around. In the <a href="https://itif.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Information Technology and Innovation Foundation's</a> (ITIF's) <a href="http://www2.itif.org/2017-benchmarking-government-websites.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">study</a> of almost 300 of the most popular federal websites, approximately 92 percent failed to perform well in at least one of key areas: security, page-load time, mobile-friendly design, and accessibility.
Last year, <a href="https://archivesocial.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ArchiveSocial</a>, a social media archiving software for record retention, <a href="https://monsido.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Monsido</a>, the website accessibility and UX software, and <a href="https://www.nextrequest.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NextRequest</a>, a FOIA request management software, had <a href="https://optimere.com/archivesocial-monsido-nextrequest-create-optimere/?utm_source=website&amp;utm_medium=press-room&amp;utm_content=press-release&amp;utm_campaign=optimere-launch" target="_blank" rel="noopener">come together to form Optimere</a>, forming the most comprehensive platform for public-sector and regulated communicators to address their ever-increasing compliance requirements. Records retention, accessibility, and data privacy standards, including the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and the American Disability Act (ADA), are in place to optimize communications. However, complying with these increasing regulations often leads to expensive litigation versus better communications. Optimere was formed to provide a solution to these complex issues so that organizations can reduce these risks and engage effectively across social channels and websites, building trust. 
According to Brian Rempe, CivicPlus's Chief Executive Officer, the acquisition represents an opportunity for CivicPlus to strengthen its support of its public sector customers' transparency, compliance, and accessibility needs.
"CivicPlus is committed to empowering our customers with technology solutions and services that enable them to govern, serve, and operate in ways that foster resident trust and appreciation," said Rempe. "Transparency and compliance are foundational components to interactions that strengthen relationships between public administrations and the people they serve. By adding Optimere's products to our integrated platform, we will help our customers in their goal to make every resident interaction positive, personalized, and frictionless."
Rempe added that, upon closing, the combined company's leaders will develop a roadmap for aligning Optimere's solutions within its Civic Experience Platform.
Ray Carey, Optimere Chief Executive Officer, noted that he is excited about the transaction and the prospect of working and growing with the CivicPlus team. “This is a great next step for our passionate and innovative team members at Optimere,” said Carey. “Being able to collaborate with CivicPlus’s people and products will lead to tremendous shared learnings and strengthen our ability to be a valuable partner to those entities looking to embrace digital transformation in ways that foster transparency and positive digital interactions.”
This announcement follows CivicPlus' acquisition of Municode, the largest codifier of legal documents for local governments in the United States and a nationally recognized provider of agenda and meeting management and municipal website design solutions and furthers CivicPlus' mission to become a scaled partner for local government.
<h2>About CivicPlus</h2>
CivicPlus® delivers technology solutions that enable local governments to optimize the experience they deliver when interacting with residents. Over 7,500 local governments use their solutions when serving their 340 million residents. CivicPlus delivers the industry’s first and only Civic Experience Platform. It enables local governments to drive more revenue, operate more efficiently, and generate positive recognition for the many services they provide every day. For more information, visit <a href="https://www.civicplus.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">civicplus.com</a>.
<h2>About Optimere</h2>
Optimere is the leading provider of digital compliance, accessibility, and records management solutions that illuminate the path to trusted communications. Optimere has over 6,000 customers globally and is the maker of brands including ArchiveSocial, Monsido, and NextRequest. For more information, visit <a href="https://optimere.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Optimere.com</a>.

CivicPlus Enters into Agreement to Acquire Optimere

<a href="http://www.hyland.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hyland</a> isn't giving up any ground in the battle for content services domination. And they shouldn't – not when the competition includes <a href="https://www.hyland.com/en/explore/gartner-magic-quadrant-for-content-services-platforms" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Microsoft, Box, and OpenText</a>. 
To that end, Hyland just <a href="https://news.hyland.com/hyland-releases-latest-content-services-and-intelligent-automation-product-enhancements/">announced</a> some new and noteworthy product functionality, service enhancements, and industry-focused solutions to support organizations along their digital transformation and technology modernization journeys.
Hyland has been recognized by Gartner as a content services industry leader for 12 consecutive years, and the winner of our own <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/introducing-the-winners-of-the-2021-cms-critics-choice-awards/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Critic's Choice Awards</a> for ECM in 2021. Along with its continued investment in innovation, the company has made several keen acquisitions over the past two years, giving it extra leverage to compete with the aforementioned "big guns." 
A few examples: in 2020, <a href="https://news.hyland.com/hyland-acquires-rpa-software-provider-another-monday/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hyland acquired Another Monday</a>, the robotic process automation (RPA) software, <a href="https://news.hyland.com/hyland-completes-acquisition-of-streamline-healths-ecm-business/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Streamline Health ECM,</a> and <a href="https://news.hyland.com/hyland-acquires-blockchain-credentialing-provider-learning-machine/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Learning Machine</a> – a company that develops and markets blockchain-secured digital credentialing solutions. Other acquisitions include OneContent, Perceptive (which became one of their flagship products), and <a href="https://www.hyland.com/en/company/acquisitions" target="_blank" rel="noopener">many more</a>. 
Then, like several other CMS and DXP platforms, Hyland eliminated one of its closest competitors by acquiring <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/hyland-acquires-alfresco-focuses-on-cloud-and-global-expansion-of-enterprise-cms/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Alfresco</a>. The company then went on to <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/hyland-enters-agreement-to-acquire-nuxeo/">purchase Nuxeo</a>, a content services and digital asset management (DAM) platform, giving Hyland a powerful edge with its completeness of vision. 
But buying your way to the top can only get you so far – and Hyland seems more focused than ever on improving its products and services and enhancing customer experience. 
"Our regular product releases provide immense value to organizations, regardless of where they are in their digital transformation journeys," said John Phelan, executive vice president, and chief product officer at Hyland. "These latest releases support new business demands with simplified cloud administration and storage options, new automation capabilities, seamless and secure integrations with essential business applications, and greater scalability for installations of all sizes. Our ongoing development efforts will continue to provide our customers around the globe with the most flexible, extensible, and configurable cloud content services solutions."
Here are a few highlights of the new product features:
<h2>Upgrades to content services from Alfresco</h2>
Hyland has developed several new tools on the Alfresco platform – an investment that appears to be paying off. New improvements aim to simplify the management of cloud deployments, provide more intuitive user experiences, support more complex business processes, and deliver deeper integrations with line-of-business applications. 
Hyland also extended the Alfresco Enterprise Search capabilities with Elasticsearch, including enhanced query and proximity search support. 
<h2>Improvements to intelligent automation with Hyland RPA</h2>
Hyland has been making strides with its <a href="https://www.cio.com/article/227908/what-is-rpa-robotic-process-automation-explained.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">robotic process automation</a> features. Several updates were made to the <a href="https://www.hyland.com/en/platform/product-suite/robotic-process-automation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hyland RPA</a> to provide organizations with simplified bot deployment, more visibility over automated tasks, secure and convenient integrations, and improved user experience. 
The latest product version allows organizations to coordinate end-to-end automation with the newly developed Web Manager, providing improved security, user management, and updated reporting insights. Finally, the updated Designer allows flexible, secure integration with third-party applications/services and facilitates scaling automation enterprise-wide.
<h2>New Hyland Healthcare capabilities</h2>
<a href="http://www.hyland.com/Healthcare" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hyland Healthcare's</a> latest solution, the Hyland Clinician Window, unlocks physician access to more than 75% of patient information that does not typically reside in the electronic medical record (EMR). It helps physicians make informed care decisions to improve patient outcomes by delivering access to medical images, EKGs, consult notes, and other unstructured patient data within the EMR workflow. 
<h2>Updates to Hyland Experience Capture</h2>
New functionality within Hyland's cloud-native capture product, <a href="https://www.hyland.com/en/platform/product-suite/HxC" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hyland Experience Capture</a> (HxC), delivers automatic separation by barcode for automated document splitting of 1D and 2D barcodes. This eliminates the need for manual separation, improving employee experience by rededicating workers to higher-value tasks.
<h2 id="about-hyland">About Hyland</h2>
<a href="https://www.hyland.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hyland</a> is an enterprise content management (ECM) software platform, combining integrated document management, business process management, and records management in a single application. Hyland software allows organizations to manage, control, and share digital content with employees, business partners, customers, and other constituencies. Learn more at <a href="https://www.hyland.com/en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">www.hyland.com</a>

Hyland Releases New Content Services and Intelligent Automation Product Enhancements

Featured image of Hyland logo against a blended background

Ask anyone at <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/aws-joins-mach-alliance-as-enabler-member-reflects-growth-of-cloud-native-solutions/">AWS</a> about the importance of security, and they're likely to say it's  "job zero" – and for good reason.
Unless you've been living under a rock, you probably know that cybersecurity threats and data breaches are on the rise, reaching epic proportions last year. According to <a href="https://www.sonicwall.com/news/sonicwall-the-year-of-ransomware-continues-with-unprecedented-late-summer-surge/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">SonicWall,</a> a leading security provider, there were nearly 500 million ransomware attacks through September 2021, with a staggering 1,748 attempted attacks per organization.
That's equivalent to a single business receiving 9.7 ransomware attempts every day. Yikes.
While many software platforms have embraced security standards in an effort to validate their trust, not all content management systems (CMS) have invested in these credentials. However, as more CMS platforms move to SaaS delivery and enterprise self-service, security is becoming a more pressing issue than ever before.
While new benchmarks for security compliance continue to emerge, the International Organization for Standardization – <a href="https://www.iso.org/home.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">also known as ISO</a> – has long been an institution for normalizing critical business practices and product requirements. Along with providing a heightened degree of technical governance around key information security requirements, ISO's 27001 certification might offer a new model for CMS platforms to project a more secure posture across global markets.
To that end, <a href="https://www.storyblok.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Storyblok</a> – an enterprise headless CMS that enables developers and marketers to deliver powerful content experiences on any digital platform – recently announced that it had received <a href="https://www.certipedia.com/quality_marks/9000020037?locale=en&amp;certificate_number=01+153+2100668" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ISO 27001 certification</a> from TÜV Rheinland, an independent third party. This critical certification verifies that all of Storyblok’s products, operations, support processes, and data storage protocols meet the highest international security standards when it comes to managing information security. 
To understand more about how users view their CMS security, Storyblok surveyed 530 professionals who personally use a CMS in the United States, UK, Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands. We had a chance to chat with <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/sgierlinger/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sebastian Gierlinger</a>, VP of Engineering at Storyblok, about the data they received from the survey – as well as some of his insights on the headless CMS market. You can read our Q&amp;A below. 
<h2>Understanding the perception of security for CMS users</h2>
If you don't already know from personal experience (and we hope you don't), security problems can be very expensive for enterprises – and in some cases, even sink a business. 
In a report called <a href="https://www.forrester.com/report/The-Four-Tenets-Of-SaaS-Application-Security-And-Protection/RES165119" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Four Tenets Of SaaS Application Security And Protection</a>, analyst firm Forrester said: “Losing data in a SaaS application because of insufficient data protection is every CISO’s and compliance officer’s nightmare. Mitigation costs can exceed $3 million to $3.5 million per incident — and that’s a conservative estimate.”
Once again, we'll insert a yikes for dramatic purposes. 
Storyblok conducted its survey to better understand the collective psyche of CMS users as it relates to security. The results were quite revealing and reflect the elevated concern felt across software markets. Here are a few of the most telling data points gleaned from respondents:
<ul>
<li>64.3% worry about the security of their CMS</li>
<li>80% said security is extremely important or very important to them when choosing a CMS</li>
<li>More than half (55.5%) said their CMS has new security issues on a monthly, weekly, or daily basis</li>
<li>46.4% had a CMS security issue affect their content</li>
<li>21.7% conduct security updates 5-9 times per month</li>
</ul>
<h2>The rise of headless and the impact on CMS security</h2>
There's no question that <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-free-headless-cms-platforms/">headless</a> has been powering the energy in the CMS market for the last few years. More businesses are making the move from traditional monolithic platforms to decoupled systems that provide greater agility with API-first architectures. This has been reflected in the rapid rise of composable solutions and <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/mach-alliance-releases-study-on-adoption-of-mach-technologies-by-tech-leaders-qa-with-sonja-keerl/">MACH</a> (Microservices, APIs, Cloud-first SaaS, Headless) architectures – and the proliferation of the <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/mach-alliance-releases-study-on-adoption-of-mach-technologies-by-tech-leaders-qa-with-sonja-keerl/">MACH Alliance</a>. 
There are many advantages to using a headless CMS. While they don't provide the same backend rendering capabilities as a traditional CMS, they do offer more flexibility, scalability, and ease of use. But there's also one key advantage of headless that is often overlooked: security. By maintaining a separated frontend and backend, a headless architecture is much less susceptible to security threats like distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.
To learn more about Storyblok’s commitment to the highest standards of security, visit its <a href="https://www.storyblok.com/trust-center" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Trust Center.</a>
<h2>Q&amp;A with Sebastian Gierlinger, VP of Engineering at Storyblok</h2>
CMS Critic had an opportunity to connect recently with Sebastian Gierlinger. He shared some of his views on the headless CMS market, particularly around security, as well as the rise of MACH. 
As Gierlinger noted in the company's press release, “Traditional CMSs have a bad reputation for the security headaches they cause, and for a good reason. Getting the ISO 27001 certification was especially important to us because it ensures that any enterprise using Storyblok to share their content with the world is doing so on the most secure, enterprise-grade headless CMS available on the market.”
<hr />
CMS Critic (CC): Where are the top security advantages with a headless CMS versus traditional?
Sebastian Gierlinger (SG): Generally speaking, Headless CMS reduces the exposure of infrastructure that’s front-facing. This reduces the surface of potential attacks. In addition, the hosting infrastructure of a Headless CMS is less complex compared to a traditional CMS.
<hr />
CC: The headless CMS market is growing, but so too are the platform options. How important is the ISO certification to differentiating across an expanding field of competitive players?
SG: Security is a major concern for many enterprises, and the ISO certification of Storyblok recognized that all our products, operations, support processes, and data storage protocols meet the highest standards. Customers do expect best-in-class security, and we believe that Storyblok’s ISO certification provides more proof that we deeply care about the modern enterprise tech stack and making it as secure as possible.
<hr />
CC: How is infrastructure (ie, Cloud) playing into the overall security posture for CMS users – particularly with headless?
SG: A headless CMS is built on top of a best-of-breed approach that sits on cloud infrastructure solutions. While on-premise hosting has been the default situation up until recently (a few years ago), we would argue that cloud infrastructure tends to be more secure as it comes with security resources, 24/7 support, and uptime guarantees. With those things in place, there’s hardly anything that could really go wrong. Sure, cloud infrastructure isn’t 100% safe from security attacks or other issues; however, the likelihood of an AWS outage tends to be much smaller than that of an on-premise infrastructure managed by you and your team.
<hr />
CC: How specifically is the ISO certification reinforcing trust for Storyblok? Are there specific tenants of the ISO standards that were challenging to meet – but now provide heightened security that other platforms aren’t able to meet?
SG: During the ISO certification process, we did not apply for any exemptions in the statement of applicability (SoA) and met all specific requirements right away. 
We are really proud that the ISO certification covers the entire operation, maintenance, and development of Storyblok’s CMS and all related services. In order to fulfill those requirements, we had to make sure that Storyblok establishes secure processes and standards in all departments across the organization.
<hr />
CC: On the same topic: how is the ISO certification supporting Storyblok’s global growth strategy? Do you foresee this as an opportunity to grow your customer base in other markets where the ISO certification is preferred or even required?
SG: We do see existing and potential customers in all regions requesting security standards that are now being met with the ISO 27001 certification. Also, leading analyst firms reassured us that ISO 27001 certification is a top priority amongst many enterprises. Other security certifications can be mapped and fulfilled with ISO 27001.
Overall, ISO 27001 is definitely an important requirement in many European countries; however, we also see US-based companies requesting this certification.
<hr />
CC: As of late, there’s been increased attention around MACH. We see that you are a member of the MACH Alliance – can you talk about the importance of being an open, best-of-breed technology in this ecosystem? Is this proving to be a differentiator?
SG: The MACH principles provide an innovative solution for creating and launching the modern enterprise tech architecture and building new experiences quickly and efficiently. Additionally, as the MACH principles adhere to the best-of-breed approach, organizations can easily add and replace tools as needed, unlike in monolithic structures.
Due to working with structured or atomic content, the way in which content moves within its ecosystem has been radically transformed. 
Content creators are now decoupled from developers due to CMS platforms, giving them the freedom to power on without leaning on developers for minuscule changes or edits. Simply put, the way we work has evolved along with our technology.
Overall, we believe that the MACH principles are becoming the standard way that the modern enterprise stack should look like. And with the MACH Alliance, we've found a group that tells this story on a global scale.
<h2>About Storyblok</h2>
Storyblok is an enterprise headless CMS that enables developers and marketers to deliver powerful content experiences on any digital platform. Developers create flexible components that are independently managed by content teams through a collaborative visual editor and customizable workflow. Published content is delivered through an API, so changes are made once and will appear everywhere: websites, mobile, IoT, the metaverse, and beyond. This approach reduces maintenance and makes content management more efficient. Leading brands such as Adidas, Pizza Hut, and Marc O’Polo use Storyblok to manage and share their content with the world. Storyblok was named the #1 CMS for 2022 by G2.
For more information, visit <a href="https://www.storyblok.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.storyblok.com</a> and follow Storyblok on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/storyblok" target="_blank" rel="noopener">LinkedIn</a> and <a href="https://www.twitter.com/storyblok" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Twitter</a>.

Storyblok Earns ISO 27001 Certification for Secure, Enterprise-grade Headless CMS: Q&A with Sebastian Gierlinger

Storyblock featured image of ISO 27001 logo with Storyblok logo icon and headshot of Sebastian Gierlinger

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<a href="https://www.sitecore.com/blog/headless/what-is-mach-architecture#:~:text=MACH%20architecture%20is%20a%20set,independently%20developed%2C%20deployed%20and%20managed." target="_blank" rel="noopener">MACH</a> is accelerating a bit like... well, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Boeing's X-37</a> orbital spacecraft.
Just how fast can this experimental plane go? According to several sources, it can easily reach speeds of MACH 25.
MACH 25. Wow! That's fast. And it's exactly how the growth of MACH has felt: like we're heading into orbit.
What's fascinating is not just the velocity at which MACH has taken off, but the community awareness and adoption it has garnered in a relatively short period of time. The banner of MACH (which stands for Microservices-based, API-first, Cloud-native SaaS, and <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-free-headless-cms-platforms/">Headless</a>) has become a symbolic flag across the digital industry, crystallizing the vision of a composable enterprise – one in which every component is plug-and-play, scalable, replaceable, and continuously improved to meet the evolving demands of businesses. 
And what better wingman on this meteoric flight than the <a href="https://machalliance.org/">MACH Alliance</a>: an industry organization founded by <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/commercetools-acquires-frontastic-adds-composable-frontend-capabilities-to-headless-commerce/">commercetools</a>, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/contentstack-raises-57-5-million-in-series-b-round-qa-with-ceo-neha-sampat/">Contentstack</a>, EPAM Systems, and Valtech to "future-proof enterprise technology and propel current and future digital experiences." Formed in June of 2020, the MACH Alliance has sought to bring together like-minded tech companies to push for MACH as an enterprise standard. Over the last two years, this fledgling community has exploded to 50 certified members composed of market-leading headless CMS and DXP systems, e-Commerce providers, consultants and integrators, and three major platform enablers – including <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/aws-joins-mach-alliance-as-enabler-member-reflects-growth-of-cloud-native-solutions/">AWS</a>. 
The MACH Alliance has certainly become a voice for change at an industry level, ushering in a new era for enterprise experience technology. Heck, Forrester's Joe Cicman <a href="https://www.forrester.com/blogs/buy-an-integrated-platform-not-a-box-of-rocks/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">described them</a> as the "bouncers controlling the velvet rope at the entrance of the Coolest Tech in Town Club" – a quote that would put a bit of swagger in anyone's stroll. But despite the measurable energy and chatter around MACH, there's still that eight-hundred-pound gorilla of a question:
Are companies really investing in this technology? And if not, are they planning to move to MACH?
That's what the MACH Alliance set out to determine in a recent study. The data from its report was interesting, to say the least – and we had a chance to connect with <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/sonjakeerl/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sonja Keerl</a>, President of the MACH Alliance, to inquire about the findings and help further "demystify MACH."
<h2>MACH adoption is a growing focus for tech leaders</h2>
Announced earlier this month, the <a href="https://machalliance.org/insights/our-2022-research-shows-mach-adoption-is-high-on-the-agenda-for-tech-leaders" target="_blank" rel="noopener">"Enterprise MACHified" 2022 study</a> – conducted by <a href="https://melresearch.co.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mel Research</a> –  polled IT leaders on their current adoption, readiness, and future plans for the use of MACH architecture and technologies. The study provides a snapshot of the current state of MACH adoption across several key geographies, revealing that many tech leaders have continued to progress towards MACH architectures over the past year – with a 19% increase in companies that have moved away from monolithic to best-of-breed, composable solutions. 
According to the study, these same tech leaders see MACH as the "future of architecture," with 79% planning to increase their investments over the next year and beyond. At the same time, the research highlights some challenges around speed and flexibility as it relates to the cycle of customer experience (CX) improvements. Organizations also continue to struggle with on-premises costs while focusing more budget around speed, privacy, and other CX considerations. 
For the study itself, Mel Research spoke with a range of technology decision-makers (CIO/CTOs, VP/SVP, Senior Managers) across the UK, Germany, and the US. All organizations had at least 5,000 employees and a revenue of at least $500M annually. The research sought to:
<ul>
<li>measure and monitor readiness to transition to best-of-breed</li>
<li>identify drivers behind decision making</li>
<li>reveal the barriers to MACH architecture uptake</li>
<li>understand experiences from companies in transition</li>
<li>detail who the key stakeholders are in the decision making process</li>
</ul>
The report is both optimistic and cautionary – and further codifies the MACH Alliance's agnostic mission to serve its community with meaningful knowledge and resources. The data is presented through a frank and unbiased lens while illustrating where the most significant barriers exist to MACH adoption. There's a ton of rich detail in the study itself, which can be <a href="https://machalliance.org/insights/our-2022-research-shows-mach-adoption-is-high-on-the-agenda-for-tech-leaders" target="_blank" rel="noopener">downloaded here</a>.
<h2>Q&amp;A with Sonja Keerl – President, MACH Alliance </h2>
CMS Critic had an opportunity to connect with Sonja Keerl, who also serves as the Global Head of Product Marketing at Contentstack (one of the founders of the MACH Alliance). We asked for her perspective on a few key data points, and she provided some fantastic insight. We highly recommend reviewing the study and cross-referencing the answers below.
<hr />
CMS Critic (CC): What might account for the variance between the UK and German data when it comes to decision-makers seeing MACH as the future of architecture? It’s a fairly wide gap. Is it just the sample size – or is something else going on from a tech culture perspective?
Sonja Keerl (SK): The sample sizes are roughly the same for all intents and purposes. The data shows that generally, Germans are less “bold” than other nations. Respondents from Germany expressed more caution when it comes to being early adopters than those in the US and UK. They seem to consider more of the “rational” factors, often needing more specifics around the tech-specs of things, clearer explanations of features and benefits, and the like.
<hr />
CC: Can you expand on the data’s revelations about headless and microservices benefits not being top of mind for most respondents? What can be gleaned from this insight?
SK: It’s not so much that the benefits aren’t top of mind, but instead that many IT leaders are still in the implementation phase and are not seeing the benefits yet.
<hr />
CC: There’s been increased sensitivity around cybersecurity as of late, elevated by the crisis in Ukraine. How might this impact the importance of MACH, especially given that it’s already seen as a key factor for driving the transition?
SK: The focus on cybersecurity has never been more important, and having good digital hygiene, as we’ve called it, is crucial. MACH tools do play a part in this, as they are compartmentalized by design, which can be used to define security access rules. The “M” in MACH stands for microservices, a type of software architecture that breaks up an application (think: an e-Commerce platform) into smaller individual services (such as product information, pricing, or checkout). 
The key here is ensuring employees and contractors only have access to the information they need to do their jobs, and nothing more. A compartmentalized security approach creates zones of permissions that provide relevant parties access to the services and data they need, but access to the full scope of data is extremely tight. Stolen credentials then have a limited amount of movement and become less valuable.
The security implications have indeed been a driving force toward the increased adoption of MACH.
<hr />
CC: The research on the barriers to MACH is especially poignant, with a large majority of respondents citing a “resistance to change” as the key obstacle. That is closely followed by “vendor lock-in,” which seems to be a centerpiece of the MACH narrative. How is the MACH Alliance working to help overcome these challenges to adoption? Is this a typical technology cycle of early adopters versus late, or are we seeing something different with these trends? And how might organizations achieve greater insight around the ROI of investing in MACH solutions?
SK: To an extent, it’s a fear of newness and change. If things have been done the same way all along, even if that way is no longer the best, it’s familiar, it’s comfortable and it’s going to be an uphill battle for change. That sense of familiarity carries a high price, though, as we see with this research. MACH Alliance was formed for this very reason, to help demystify MACH and help organizations see how it could work for their own business, and we’re doing that by providing every resource possible for businesses that want to learn more. 
Some of the things we encourage companies to ask themselves as they consider the transition from monolith to MACH include: 
<ul>
<li>Does your current ecosystem make things difficult to change?</li>
<li>Are you currently operating a big monthly or longer release cycle?</li>
<li>Does it feel like you are upgrading your systems all the time?</li>
<li>Do you seem to be using 50% of a platform but paying for 100% of it?</li>
<li>Are DevOps, CI/CD, and Product-led roadmaps blocked by your current setup?</li>
<li>Would the increased revenue from a MACH ecosystem outweigh the costs and risks associated with a full re-platform?</li>
</ul>
<hr />
CC: The cost of upgrades is telling. How does this underscore the opportunity for MACH?
SK: It’s straightforward: When you break free from the release cycle, which could be likened to a hamster wheel, you can allocate time, money, and people towards other things, like innovation, that drive new revenue streams or other forms of business value. The opportunity for MACH is tremendous. I think execs see that. It’s just about getting them to make that commitment to change that can be a slower pull, but we believe we’re pulling in the right direction. 
<hr />
CC: One of the final recommendations from the research firm is to work with IT teams to convince them of the benefits of MACH. How is the MACH Alliance taking action on this? What sort of programs and resources are you providing from a community perspective to help overcome this obstacle? And if leaders are largely convinced, how can they play a bigger role?
SK: Our role is to educate IT professionals about the benefits MACH can deliver through use cases and practical sessions like <a href="https://machalliance.org/insights/when-and-how-to-move-from-a-monolithic-approach-to-a-composable-platform-ecosystem" target="_blank" rel="noopener">this webinar</a> discussing when and how to move from a monolithic approach to a composable platform. And <a href="https://machalliance.org/insights/understanding-the-total-cost-of-ownership-and-roi-for-mach-architecture" target="_blank" rel="noopener">this article</a> is about calculating the TCO and ROI of MACH. Our ambassadors are independent of our member companies, and all have first-hand experience implementing these technologies.
The leading-edge companies who could recreate their core concepts, who could restructure, reorient and reprioritize, grew three times the rate of their peers in the first two years of Covid. With an anticipated increase in IT budgets on the horizon, IT leaders first need to look at getting all the pieces they have into the cloud. By nature, MACH supports an incremental approach to digital transformation. By breaking the platform down by functionality, they can add new MACH elements which only affect a small part of a business process and meet specific business needs, so people don’t have to spend their entire way of working just to test out a new feature. The MACH approach allows for easy, incremental change without a huge investment and disruptive change.

MACH Alliance Releases Study on Adoption of MACH Technologies by Tech Leaders: Q&A with Sonja Keerl

MACH Alliance featured image with Sonja Keerl headshot and MACH Alliance logo

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While 2022 has already been unpredictable in almost every way, the one persistent trend in the CMS market is the continuous flow of investment dollars.
Speaking of investments: the latest announcement comes from <a href="https://craftercms.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CrafterCMS</a> – an open source Git-based headless platform for enterprises. The company revealed that it has closed on a second institutional round of funding from Lighter Capital, the leading fintech lender of non-dilutive financing to tech startups. 
Crafter first partnered with Lighter Capital in 2019 with an investment of revenue-based debt, which was paid off ahead of schedule thanks to CrafterCMS's faster than anticipated growth and profitable operations. According to the company, this new and larger second round of capital will fuel continued growth for the niche CMS player. 
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<div>Crafter's news comes on the heels of a heated cycle of funding, including <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/bloomreach-reaches-2-2-billion-valuation-following-175-million-investment-from-goldman-sachs/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bloomreach's</a> $175 million round and <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/elastic-path-secures-60m-in-funding-for-composable-commerce-growth/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Elastic Path's</a> securing of $60 million in financing to grow its composable commerce solutions. It appears that investment dollars are finding their way to every layer of the CMS and DXP stack in response to the continued focus on digital transformation. 
<h2>Driving value in a competitive headless CMS marketplace</h2>
CrafterCMS is a Git-based headless content management system, allowing users to work locally in teams via an API-powered Git repo. This gives developers greater control over versioning while enabling them to work in their preferred languages with their favorite tools and processes. Crafter's flexible headless architecture provides everything a user needs to create modern digital experiences and connect to a wide array of omnichannel endpoints – including websites, mobile devices, kiosk screens, email, video, and more. 
Crafter also has the distinction of being open source with an active community across a variety of channels. Developers can access a range of resources from source code to documentation and connect with the company and other users via Slack, Discord, and StackOverflow. 
The platform offers self-managed, self-managed on-premises enterprise support, and fully-managed private SaaS/PaaS operations and support. All offerings are sold as recurring, annual support subscriptions. 
<h2>Enhancing digital experiences in an omnichannel world</h2>
According to the company, Crafter appreciates high customer renewal rates, low customer churn, and strong upsell with major brands and enterprises across the globe – which has helped it achieve rapid growth. Crafter's enterprise customers range from the Fortune 500 to large government agencies to digital-native startups – all running mission-critical, highly scalable enterprise websites and various multi-channel digital experiences that include e-Commerce, OTT video, employee intranets, customer portals, interactive voice assistants, AR/VR experiences, and more.
"CrafterCMS continues to scale to meet growing customer demand, which we've seen accelerate as major enterprises and hyper-growth startups are looking for a modern content platform on which to build next-generation digital experiences," said Mike Vertal, President and CEO of CrafterCMS. "With growth comes the need for financing, and Lighter Capital has proven to be an ideal partner for us. This second round of capital will allow us to accelerate our expansion plans and do so without any of the ownership dilution of traditional venture capital financing. At the same time, it will foster the discipline to maintain both capital efficiency and a strong balance sheet for the long term, allowing us to focus entirely on driving customer success and nurturing our open source community."
Lighter Capital is the largest provider of non-dilutive debt capital to startups. It has revolutionized startup financing by making it easy for entrepreneurs to quickly access up to $4 million in non-dilutive growth and working capital through our tech-enabled lending process. With no hidden fees, warrants, or covenants, founders have full control over how to use the funds. Since 2010, Lighter has invested hundreds of millions of dollars of non-dilutive funding to hundreds of companies in the US, Canada, and Australia.
"Crafter is an ideal Lighter Capital client," said Jon Prentice, Investment Director at Lighter Capital. "We look for strong recurring revenue models and capital-efficient operators. Mike and his team have built a scaling company. Investment from Lighter allows them to immediately access capital to achieve goals and boost growth without dilution or changing the company's vision."
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<h2>Q&amp;A with Mike Vertal, President and CEO, CrafterCMS</h2>
CMS Critic had an opportunity to connect recently with <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikevertal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mike Vertal</a>. He shared some of his views on the CMS market, the value of being open source, and their plans with Crafter Studio.
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CMS Critic (CC): The CMS and DXP markets are getting extremely dense and commoditized, and headless seems to be taking up more of the air in the room. Where do you see Crafter having its greatest strategic advantage? And how will this new funding be used to support your growth goals?
Mike Vertal (MV): Yes, headless is all the rage, but this is only one of many features needed in a modern enterprise CMS. The CMS market is, of course, dense and highly fragmented, with many of the headless-only CMSs focused on simpler use cases. In contrast, CrafterCMS focuses on the needs of larger enterprises and fast-growing startups that have more sophisticated content management needs and who are building a wide variety of new digital experience applications. To address this segment of the market, Crafter’s unique differentiators include:
1) Git-based content repository: Unlike most other CMSs that are built on top of databases (either SQL or NoSQL), Crafter is built on top of Git as its content repository. This not only provides much more extensive content versioning, auditing, branching, and rollback capabilities but also allows developers to leverage GitOps to accelerate development cycles of content-enabled apps.
2) DevContentOps processes: Headless is only about building apps on top of APIs; Crafter also streamlines developer workflows by eliminating bottlenecks of traditional database-centric CMSs, enables better collaboration among the developer teams and content authoring teams, and eases integration with enterprise DevOps and CI/CD tools via APIs. This is what we call DevContentOps – integrating content management processes into the traditional DevOps processes and tooling.
3) Powerful and user-friendly content authoring: Many of the simpler headless CMSs have crippled the content authoring teams, leaving them with primitive content creation/editing/preview/workflow/publishing capabilities. In contrast, Crafter has a sophisticated content authoring toolset (Crafter Studio) that supports in-context editing, multi-channel previews, drag/drop experience building... that content teams can use to improve productivity regardless of the front-end technology that the development uses to build the end user experience. So whether the development team has used React, Angular, Vue, HTML5, A-Frame (for AR/VR), or whatever, the content authors get a truly WYSIWYG editing capability. This is quite unique in the industry.
4) Proven in larger enterprises: our clients include Marriott, MasterCard, Penn Mutual, BNY Mellon, Papa Johns, UK Government, US Navy, among many others. The funds will be used to continue investing in CrafterCMS development, including our upcoming Version 4 release that will significantly advance Crafter Studio (content authoring platform) and will add significantly more reusable plugins available on the CrafterCMS Marketplace, along with further investments in customer success and our open source community.
<hr />
CC: What part is open source playing for buyers in 2022?
MV: Open source is slowly but surely taking over more of the enterprise, you just have to look at the tremendous success of Elastic, MongoDB, Confluent, Datastax and Gitlab to name just a few as proof. This is because savvy enterprise technology buyers realize that open source not only delivers better value over the long term, but also provides higher levels of security, agility, and innovation.
At CrafterCMS, we spend less than 20% of our revenues on sales/marketing expenses (compared with 70%-100% or more spent by proprietary and SaaS-only vendors), as our open source business model allows us to reach into enterprises much more cost effectively. Further, our open source community helps us 1) identify a wide range of new use cases and interesting new features, 2) contribute to the development efforts, 3) test and document early releases, and 4) find and resolve any security issues extremely rapidly, among a host of other benefits that are typical of open source projects.
<hr />
CC: How are you adapting to the composable revolution that’s driving more MACH-based solution selling for headless platforms?
MV: CrafterCMS fits perfectly well into composable, MACH-based architectures. We have always focused exclusively on being a best-of-breed CMS, and not building out a full-suite of DXP capabilities. Furthermore, CrafterCMS itself is a MACH-based system. How?
Micro-services: CrafterCMS is composed of several decoupled services: content authoring, content delivery, content publisher, content search, Git-based content repository, user profiles, etc..
API-first: Both Crafter’s content authoring and content delivery systems are API-first headless platforms, supporting REST, GraphQL, Javascript (Nodejs, Next js, etc.), and Java APIs. Furthermore, Crafter supports extensible APIs, allowing server side APIs to be scripted, extended, created.
Cloud-native: Crafter’s content delivery system is stateless and serverless, allowing elastic scalability in any cloud and allowing operations to be extremely simple.
Because CrafterCMS itself is based on a MACH architecture, our users can integrate Crafter easily with other MACH-like services such as e-commerce tools like commercetools, cloud-based OTT video streaming services like AWS Media Services, interactive voice assistants such as Alexa devices, to name just a few. Moreover, many of these integrations are available off the shelf in the CrafterCMS Marketplace today, allowing composability of solutions with minimal development. As mentioned above, the new funding will allow us to invest in many more of these integrations and make them available on our marketplace.
<h3>About CrafterCMS</h3>
CrafterCMS replaces the broken paradigm of traditional content management and enables a new era of fast, agile and easier development of innovative digital experiences that benefits large enterprises and fast-growing startups. As an open-source, API-first and Git-based headless platform, CrafterCMS is amazing for developers, easy for content authors, and fantastic for DevContentOps. Enterprises can choose from support options that include self-hosted/self-managed, fully-managed private SaaS/PaaS in the cloud, and community-supported open source. Learn more about the open source project at <a href="https://craftercms.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://craftercms.org</a>, and enterprise solutions at <a href="https://craftercms.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://craftercms.com</a>.
<h3>About Lighter Capital</h3>
Lighter Capital is a fintech company revolutionizing startup finance by offering a new funding path for early-stage tech companies. We understand that an entrepreneur’s two greatest constraints are time and money, and we’ve developed technology to fund companies quickly and easily. We provide up to $4 million of non-dilutive growth capital in a fraction of the time it takes to raise from traditional sources. Based in the US and Australia, we’ve provided over 800 financings to 425+ companies across the US, Canada,

CrafterCMS Announces Second Round of Financing to Fuel Rapid Growth: Interview with CEO Mike Vertal

Featured post image of CrafterCMS logo with headshot of CEO Mike Vertal

"Headless broke the editing experience."
That was one of the many enlightening observations we heard during a press briefing yesterday with Pierre Burgy, CEO of <a href="http://strapi.io/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Strapi.</a> Along with a few sneak peeks of what to expect at the second annual <a href="https://conf.strapi.io/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">StrapiConf</a>, the presentation covered some exciting announcements from one of the world's leading open-source headless content management systems (CMS).
Now in its second year, StrapiConf is the company's free annual conference, focused on its growing community of global users. One of the highlights of the two-day event has been the launch of the beta version of Strapi 4.2 – which features TypeScript support, a "dark mode" screen option, and an in-app marketplace packed with integrations. 
<h2>Enhancing the developer experience with TypeScript</h2>
<a href="https://www.typescriptlang.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">TypeScript</a>, one of the most requested features on the Strapi roadmap, now makes the Strapi codebase more reliable, accessible, and easy to refactor for developers. TypeScript provides numerous features, including the addition of syntax to JavaScript – enabling users to catch errors earlier within their editor. TypeScript was also reported as being used by 78% of the <a href="https://2020.stateofjs.com/en-US/technologies/javascript-flavors/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2020 State of JS</a> respondents, with 93% saying they would use it again.
"When we developed Strapi v4, we anticipated TypeScript support by introducing an internal typing system," said Alexandre Bodin, CTO, Strapi. "The new TypeScript support relies on that, but it will also be very useful for schema and data migration. This brand new version also introduces a dark mode option for those who prefer dark interfaces. This new functionality also sets the foundations for more advanced and custom themes in the future."
<h2>Growing a stronger community at StrapiConf</h2>
According to the company, StrapiConf is assembling more than 4,000 attendees and 20 sponsors from across the Strapi Community. The mission: learn, contribute, and collaborate on the future of the leading open-source headless CMS. Holding a second annual conference is a clear signal that Strapi's footprint and market position is gaining ground and should give industry watchers and investors a reason to pay attention. 
With more than 43,000 stars on <a href="https://github.com/strapi/strapi" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GitHub</a>, 700 active contributors, and more than 5 million downloads, Strapi is the fastest-growing open-source Headless CMS. Strapi empowers developers to quickly build apps that enable collaboration and collective intelligence over the entire content lifecycle.
<h2>Strapi Market expands headless and composable ecosystem</h2>
Following the announcement last month of <a href="https://market.strapi.io/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Strapi Market</a>, a marketplace of plugins and integrations, Strapi v4 now adds access directly in the admin panel, giving users the ability to easily find and install v4 plugins in seconds taking advantage of new features while securely accelerating time to production. 
"Imagine a world where you could pull from any device, in any format, content that is connected to various services and co-created by hundreds of people," said Burgy. "With this new release, we're moving beyond the creation of a Headless CMS and building a Composable Content Platform together with the Strapi community and ecosystem."
Strapi also shared its plan for another highly requested feature called custom fields, a powerful way to aggregate application programming interfaces (APIs), making frontend engineers' lives easier and significantly speeding up development. Custom fields enable support for new business data from external sources and improve the content editing experience by exposing new content types directly in the administration panel. 
<h2>Coming soon: Strapi Cloud</h2>
During our press briefing, Burgy pointed out that while some customers prefer on-prem, others want cloud hosting without the challenges of managing servers. 
To that end, the company shared a few details about the launch of Strapi Cloud: a new offering based on a platform-as-a-service approach. With Strapi Cloud, users will have a seamless deployment process without having to compromise on Strapi's unique customization capabilities. 
Read this <a href="https://strapi.io/blog/strapiconf-2022-announcements-recap" target="_blank" rel="noopener">blog post</a> to learn more about all the StrapiConf announcements in more detail. 
<h2>About Strapi</h2>
Strapi is the leading open-source headless CMS: 100% JavaScript, extensible, and fully customizable. Strapi enables developers to build projects faster by providing a customizable API out of the box and giving them the freedom to use their favorite tools. Content teams use Strapi to autonomously manage all types of content and distribute it from one CMS to any channel including websites, mobile apps, or connected devices. The remote-first company has employees in six countries and is scaling its team globally. To learn more, visit <a href="http://strapi.io/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">strapi.io</a>.

Strapi Announces TypeScript Support, Makes Third-Party Plugins Directly Accessible at StrapiConf 2022

StrapiConf 2022 conference logo against a purple background

Acquia has every DAM reason to be running a victory lap right now – and its DAM has something to do with it.
Recently, the Drupal-powered DXP announced that its <a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/marketing-cloud/dam" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Widen Digital Asset Management (DAM)</a> solution was named a "Leader" in <a href="https://www.acquia.com/resources/reports/forrester-wave-digital-asset-management" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Forrester Wave™: Digital Asset Management For Customer Experience, Q1 2022 Report</a>. The analyst firm's research evaluated the 14 most significant DAM vendors against 27 criteria grouped into three categories: current offering, strategy, and market presence.
While this news comes fresh off the Forrester presses, it's augmented by the recent publishing of the <a href="https://www.acquia.com/resources/report/gartner-dxp-magic-quadrant?utm_source=google&amp;utm_medium=cpc&amp;utm_campaign=ppc_google_bof_mc_2022&amp;utm_content=7013a000002hl4dAAA&amp;utm_term=ppc_google_bof_mc_2022&amp;gclid=Cj0KCQiA95aRBhCsARIsAC2xvfwt8tHfpiJWirnXF0U4tNCgxIL4EoPamKncFewhJltgH7JITnH0kTUaAtQ7EALw_wcB" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms (DXP)</a>, where Acquia continues to tighten the race for leadership with <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/adobe-acquires-video-collaboration-platform-frame-io/">Adobe</a> and <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/optimizely-partners-with-google-cloud-to-take-experimentation-to-the-next-level/">Optimizely</a>. 
<h2>Broadening DXP with DAM</h2>
Last year, Acquia <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/acquia-widens-its-dxp-stack-with-widen-acquires-dam-and-pim-capabilities/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">acquired Widen</a> in an effort to bring its best-of-breed DAM and PIM capabilities to its expanding ecosystem. As a platform, Widen has been focused on large organizations where marketing teams required a more comprehensive <a href="https://www.widen.com/blog/digital-asset-management" target="_blank" rel="noopener">digital asset</a> strategy for managing rich media, product information, and marketing content into a single workflow – and all accessible via an intuitive user interface. 
With content being at the heart of digital experiences, acquiring Widen was a well-calculated move for Acquia. According to the Forrester report, Widen continues to lead the way with clear strengths around search and marketing features, rounding out Acquia's digital experience platform model and filling the critical gaps of workflow and asset management capabilities.
<h2>Scoring high marks across all Forrester criteria</h2>
Widen earned the highest possible scores across Forrester's nine DAM criteria, including AI metadata extraction, search, digital rights management, version control, content performance analytics, usability and user interface, creative toolset integration, planned enhancements, and commercial model.
The report also stated that Widen offers a "clear commercial model and transparent pricing," as well as "superior capabilities with its creative toolset integration" and "solid digital rights management capabilities including integrations into third-party DRM applications." It also concluded that Widen's roadmap of planned enhancements, which are influenced by customer feedback multiple times a year, is a key advantage. 
"We believe that Forrester's findings prove the strength of Widen's DAM technology when combined with the Acquia Digital Experience Platform (DXP)," said Jake Athey, VP of Marketing at Widen. "The addition of Widen to Acquia DXP brings our customers enhanced capabilities around rich media and product information content, providing even more opportunities to build world-class digital experiences."
You can access a complimentary copy of the report here: <a href="https://www.acquia.com/resources/reports/forrester-wave-digital-asset-management" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Forrester Wave™: Digital Asset Management for Customer Experience, Q1, 2022</a>.
<h2>About Acquia</h2>
Acquia empowers the world's most ambitious brands to create digital customer experiences that matter. With open source Drupal at its core, the Acquia Digital Experience Platform (DXP) enables marketers, developers and IT operations teams at thousands of global organizations to rapidly compose and deploy digital products and services that engage customers, enhance conversions and help businesses stand out. Learn more at <a href="https://www.acquia.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://acquia.com</a>.

Acquia's Widen Named a "Leader" in Forrester Wave Report for Digital Asset Management for Customer Experience

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For many software application vendors, the cloud ecosystem has been a bit like baseball: no matter how you're planning to play, you're often forced to pick a team and stick with your bench.
But in the world of containers, the promise of a multi-cloud strategy is creating a new market of free agency – and letting organizations choose the infrastructure that best meets their needs.
While few CMS platforms can claim to be truly "cloud-first," most are providing hosting and infrastructure services that leverage one of the major public clouds. Because of the complexity and variability in service architectures, most vendors have picked either <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Amazon Web Services (AWS)</a> or <a href="https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Microsoft Azure</a> as their "home team."
But <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/?utm_medium=press-link&amp;utm_source=prnewswire.com&amp;utm_campaign=contentstack-on-microsoft-azure-only-multi-cloud-saas-cms" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Contentstack</a> believes you shouldn't have to compromise on which cloud you launch in. Last week, the headless CMS provider announced that it will now offer its platform on Microsoft Azure – right alongside AWS. This makes Contentstack the first multi-cloud SaaS CMS on the market, giving customers the freedom to run their omnichannel content operations on the cloud of their choice. 
Here's the real power play: whether a customer spins up on Azure or AWS, they'll receive the same functionality, pricing, and packaging structure. This gives buyers greater predictability around costs while eliminating any price-based or functional preference for a specific cloud to run their Contentstack workload. 
<h2>Expanding the value of headless CMS with Microsoft Azure</h2>
From the beginning, AWS has owned the lion's share of the cloud market. But Microsoft Azure has been steadily gaining ground – and is now the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2021/02/08/10-charts-that-will-change-your-perspective-of-microsoft-azures-growth/?sh=261f89773087" target="_blank" rel="noopener">second-largest provider</a> of cloud infrastructure services. According to Contentstack's press release, 85% of the Fortune 100 and 63% of enterprises overall are running applications on Azure.
Until now, no agile CMS has offered Azure as an option for its customers. While many organizations are managing multi-cloud strategies, one of the most compelling reasons for offering an alternative to AWS is the "Amazon Effect" and its dominance in digital commerce. Many online retailers and e-commerce brands have deeply-held competitive concerns with Amazon – and as a result, Azure has become the preferred choice for running their cloud workloads.
“Azure is continuing to grow market share as a leading cloud provider and businesses are increasingly looking for CMS solutions that run on the platform,” said Nishant Patel, chief technology officer for Contentstack. “Contentstack already has the highest flexibility of cloud infrastructure options on AWS, offering public, dedicated, and private Cloud options in both North American and European instances."
Contentstack also says that a lack of cloud choice has limited many organizations from realizing the benefits of a <a href="https://machalliance.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">MACH</a> (Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-headless-commerce-platforms/">Headless</a>) architecture. With the addition of Azure, those companies will now have access to a MACH approach, allowing them to choose the cloud provider that best suits their business needs.
"Now with added support for Azure public cloud in North America, we are meeting the high demand from retailers and consumer brands who ask for an alternative to Amazon, and large enterprises with strategic connections to Microsoft who want to replace their old-school CMS with an agile option," said Patel. "Any company looking for a future-fit CMS that allows you to run on Azure or AWS should consider Contentstack.”
<h2>Evolving CMS with SaaS and "cloud-agnostic" solutions</h2>
Unlike many monolithic CMS platforms, Contentstack is a SaaS offering that enables users to run in a cloud-agnostic manner. The company says this validates their internal architecture as being highly sophisticated and modern. 
Being cloud-agnostic also means that customers are "inoculated" against vendor lock-in, allowing them to mitigate the risk of costly replatforming. This composable nature aligns perfectly with the core values of the <a href="https://machalliance.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">MACH Alliance</a>, of which Contentstack is a founding member. Contentstack’s platform is built on API-first principles that are developer-friendly and support a variety of content and delivery models. 
From a technical perspective, Contentstack’s Azure offering falls under ISO27001 certification and the company is working to achieve SOC2 Type II certification by mid-2022.
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<h2>Q&amp;A with Nishant Patel, CTO of Contentstack</h2>
CMS Critic had an opportunity to connect with Nishant Patel, CTO of Contentstack. He shared some of his views on the CMS market, the value of being headless, and what his company is excited about.
<hr />
CMS Critic (CC): How are customers able to deploy in Azure? Is this similar to an AWS Marketplace listing?
Nishant Patel (NP): There is no deployment needed. AWS and Azure is a multi-tenant cloud so when customers sign up with us they select the cloud provider and the account is auto-provisioned.
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CMS Critic (CC): You mention that there are no differences in price or functionality from AWS to Azure. Can you speak to any DevOps advantages that Azure might offer for running Contentstack? What services stand out?
Nishant Patel (NP): We have made all our micro-services cloud-agnostic by writing adapters for AWS and Azure. We were able to find comparable services on Azure so migration wasn’t much of a challenge. Azure has Kubernetes as well so our containers are ported very easily from AWS to Azure.
<hr />
CMS Critic (CC): Are there plans to expand to any other specific public, private, or autonomous cloud providers?
Nishant Patel (NP): We will consider setting up Contentstack on Azure in the Europe data center as well, similar to how we have two regions currently for AWS (Europe and North America). We are not considering any other cloud provider at the moment.
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CMS Critic (CC): AWS has joined the MACH Alliance as an Enabler. How do you see Microsoft supporting the tenants of MACH now and in the future?
Nishant Patel (NP): Azure is fully capable of hosting SaaS services so I am sure there are a few vendors already in the MACH that probably are fully deployed on Azure. If a MACH vendor is selling into retail companies then they probably will get requests to deploy on non-AWS cloud. Microsoft would be a good alternative solution here.
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<h3>About Contentstack</h3>
Contentstack – the pioneering Agile Content Management System (CMS) – empowers marketers and developers to collaborate around content like never before. Together, they can orchestrate superior customer journeys and deliver dynamic digital experiences across channels, audiences, brands and regions. Companies such as Chase, Express, Holiday Inn, Icelandair, Mattel, McDonald’s, Mitsubishi, Riot Games, Sephora and Shell trust Contentstack to power their most critical content experiences. Famous for its Care Without Compromise™, Contentstack has the industry’s highest customer satisfaction. As a founder of the <a href="https://machalliance.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">MACH Alliance</a>, Contentstack advocates for open and composable technology that is Microservices-based, API-first, Cloud-native SaaS, and Headless. Learn more at <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/?utm_medium=press-link&amp;utm_source=prnewswire.com&amp;utm_campaign=contentstack-on-microsoft-azure-only-multi-cloud-saas-cms" target="_blank" rel="noopener">http://www.contentstack.com</a>.
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Contentstack Offers Microsoft Azure, Becomes Only Multi-Cloud SaaS CMS: Q&A with CTO Nishant Patel

Image of Contentstack logo with headshot of Nishant Patel, CTO

It would be impossible to cover any news this month without acknowledging <a href="https://www.economist.com/ukraine-crisis" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the crisis in Ukraine</a>. 
As many CMS and DXP vendors rely on the incredible talent and resources of the people in this region, the events of the last few weeks have hit especially close to home. Even as we publish our February recap, things continue to unfold – and our hearts go out to the people of this magnificent country.
Of course, this tragedy is evolving just as many countries are emerging from the worst of the <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/healthcare-systems-and-services/our-insights/when-will-the-covid-19-pandemic-end" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Covid-19 pandemic</a>, with many businesses poised for a return to normalcy (what that looks like still remains to be seen). Still, the lasting impact of the omnichannel revolution is being felt across all digital transformation strategies, giving way to more headless, composable, API-driven solutions as companies plan for a more digital future.
When it comes to movers and shakers, 2022 is starting much the same way as 2021: with big investments.
<a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/bloomreach-reaches-2-2-billion-valuation-following-175-million-investment-from-goldman-sachs/">Bloomreach</a>, a leading content and search platform focused on commerce, announced a $175 million round of funding – exploding its valuation to $2.2 billion. <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/elastic-path-secures-60m-in-funding-for-composable-commerce-growth/">Elastic Path</a> also made waves by securing $60 million in financing to grow its composable commerce solutions. We also saw <a href="https://www.pymnts.com/acquisitions/2022/ecommerce-platform-bigcommerce-acquires-software-firm-b2b-ninja/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">BigCommerce</a> purchase B2B Ninja, an e-commerce platform, in an effort to energize quoting and other commerce services in their ecosystem. (Hint: we have more investment news below...)
As always, we try to recap some of the news you might have missed this month. There's a lot happening across our industry, and on a brighter note, we'll be announcing the winners of the CMS Critic Awards next week – both the People's Choice and Editor's Choice categories. We had a lot of great engagement over the last month across our social channels, and we're looking forward to sharing the results. 
<h2>Twilio Segment releases its 2022 CDP Report, finds CDPs booming as businesses look beyond cookies</h2>
We're all asking the same question: what happens to data in a post-cookie world?
Segment – a leading customer data platform (CDP) purchased by Twilio<a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/twilio-acquires-segment-for-3-2b-adds-market-leading-cdp-for-building-data-driven-apps/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> in November of 2020</a> – is helping to shed some light on that query with the release of its third annual <a href="https://segment.com/the-cdp-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Customer Data Platform Report </a>(CDP).
Based on anonymized platform usage data of Segment's 25,000+ customers between 11/1/2020 to 11/1/2021, the report finds aggressive adoption of CDPs over the past year as businesses build digital-first customer engagement strategies and reduce their reliance on third-party data. 
Covid-19 shifted consumer behavior on a number of levels. In response, organizations changed how they interacted with their customers. As more digital engagements ensued, so too did the amount of data being generated. This spurred an explosive demand for CDP layers, particularly as it related to the broader CMS and DXP ecosystems.
Along with the unimaginable growth in data, the volume of API calls has also skyrocketed. <a href="https://www.postman.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Postman</a> – a leading application platform for API testing – conducted a <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/postman-releases-2021-state-of-the-api-report-shows-global-trend-towards-api-first-digital-era/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">survey</a> last year that showed the world is moving to an "API-first era" as integrations and endpoints expand exponentially. As an example, the API calls through Segment have been growing steadily year-over-year since 2017, but 2020-2021 was an inflection point – with API calls in their system reaching over 1 trillion per month. 
Another reason CDP popularity has rapidly exploded is the impending "death" of third-party data. With increasing privacy regulations and the shift to a cookieless future across apps and browsers, businesses are embracing first-party data as a focal point. 
Segment's findings validate that customer data has become an integral part of how organizations are powering their digital experiences. The report also lists 2021's fastest-growing apps. For more details, you can access the full report at: <a href="https://segment.com/the-cdp-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://segment.com/the-cdp-report</a>.
<h2>Headless commerce provider fabric announces $140 Million Series C funding led by SoftBank</h2>
<a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-headless-commerce-platforms/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">fabric</a>, the fast-growing headless commerce platform, announced the closing of a Series C funding round of $140M led by Softbank, with participation from Forerunner Ventures, Glynn Capital, and existing investors Redpoint Ventures Norwest Ventures, and Stripes. 
This latest round of funding closes a mere 219 days after its Series B – and now positions fabric's value at approximately $1.5B.
"Retailers need to meet modern consumers wherever they are – whether online, offline, mobile, social, or any future entry point. This means merchants of all sizes, and especially mid-market and enterprise, need the right commerce platform to keep pace with evolving trends," said Robert Kaplan, Investment Director at SoftBank Investment Advisers. "We believe that fabric has built the industry's best API-first modular commerce platform and accompanying commerce applications to give merchants unrivaled power and flexibility, all in a manner that reduces the pain of migrating over from legacy, outdated commerce platforms."
Funds from the Series C round will be utilized for accelerating product development largely through automation and intelligence and geographic expansion. 
<h2>Netlify announces Netlify Graph: A faster way for teams to develop web apps with APIs</h2>
Netlify, a Git-powered static site generator and headless CMS that's all the rage in the <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-jamstack-static-site-generators-for-2021/">Jamstack</a> community, has <a href="https://www.netlify.com/blog/announcing-netlify-graph-a-faster-way-for-teams-to-develop-web-apps-with-apis" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced Netlify Graph:</a> a GraphQL-powered experience designed to help developers build interactive and connected web applications faster.
The shift to API-first development has created an ecosystem where apps are modular and reusable. While the API-first approach is developer-friendly, it has also introduced new complexities such as discovering, securing, learning, and governing APIs. Netlify's Graph is designed to make this experience easier for developers, allowing them to use APIs without writing undifferentiated glue code, learning every API's unique structure, or composing endless amounts of endpoints to get data from various APIs into your app.
Netlify Graph is in public beta and available globally. It starts with a catalog that includes some of the most frequently requested APIs that development teams use, such as GitHub, Stripe, and Salesforce. The company plans to add more in the coming months. The Netlify Graph beta is available to all Netlify users and can be accessed from your <a href="https://app.netlify.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Netlify team dashboard</a>. Once logged in, simply select "Graph" from your Netlify site dashboard menu.
To learn more, head over to the <a href="https://github.com/netlify/labs/tree/main/features/graph/documentation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Netlify Graph docs.</a>
<h2>BigCommerce acquires B2B Ninja to make online selling easier for B2B merchants</h2>
<a href="https://www.bigcommerce.com/?utm_source=Business+Wire&amp;utm_medium=press+release&amp;utm_campaign=BigCommerce+Invests+in+Becoming+World%E2%80%99s+Most+Powerful+B2B+Ecommerce+Platform+with+Acquisition+of+B2B+Ninja" target="_blank" rel="noopener">BigCommerce</a>, a leading cloud e-commerce platform, <a href="https://www.bigcommerce.com/press/releases/bigcommerce-invests-in-becoming-worlds-most-powerful-b2b-ecommerce-platform-with-acquisition-of-b2b-ninja/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">announced</a> the acquisition of <a href="https://www.b2bninja.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">B2B Ninja</a> (formerly Quote Ninja) – an enterprise software solution that provides leading business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce capabilities for merchants of all sizes.
<a href="https://www.forrester.com/playbook/The+B2B+eCommerce+Playbook+For+2018/-/E-PLA370" target="_blank" rel="noopener">According to Forrester</a>, U.S. B2B e-commerce transactions are expected to reach $1.8 trillion by 2023. This is creating a groundswell of opportunity for e-commerce platform providers to deliver focused solutions to this segment of the market. A longtime BigCommerce partner, B2B Ninja brings its best-in-class quoting solution to help streamline transactions by delivering powerful e-commerce functionality to B2B merchants.
"B2B Ninja is an excellent addition to our already strong B2B capabilities," said Brent Bellm, CEO of BigCommerce. "Complementing our recent launch of B2B Edition, this is the next big step in providing a platform that is easier to use and faster than legacy B2B solutions and more flexible and powerful than other SaaS platforms. We continue to invest in ways that make BigCommerce the best platform for merchants of all sizes regardless of who or where their customers are or where merchants are selling."
B2B Ninja is available to any BigCommerce merchant on any plan to enhance the customer experience and easily manage quotes online.

CMS Monthly Recap: Big Investment News, Segment Releases 2022 CDP Report, Netlify Graph Launches and More

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