Articles - Page 40

What I Mean to Say: A Practitioner Perspective on AI, Semantics, and Content Evolution

msalvatierra

<a href="https://kontent.ai/">Kentico Kontent</a>, a leader in the Headless CMS market, announced the launch of their new user interface, designed to help enterprise content teams execute their content operations faster.
Kontent’s UX team stated that the new interface incorporates direct feedback from their customers and partners. After conducting deeper usability tests and analyses, the platform now features an enhanced, more intuitive UI with a minimal learning curve.
<h2>Streamlining Content Operations</h2>
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” That’s the mantra software vendors wrestle with when considering any change to their UI/UX. The challenge exists because users sometimes react negatively to changes – no matter how small – as they can disrupt their workflow.
Content operations within an organization are especially sensitive to UI/UX modifications, as CMS users can quickly become frustrated with new or different processes that delay their publishing rhythm. Kontent believes it has overcome potential objections by listening to users and focusing on key areas of improvement.
“The new look makes it easier for editors to find content and action items, helping them stay focused on the task at hand,” said Tadeas Kubat, VP User Experience at Kentico Kontent.
<h2>A fresh design approach</h2>
At first glance, Kontent’s new visual design is quite different from the previous. It is more modern and appealing, sporting an array of vibrant colors with plenty of contrast to emphasize important elements. Overall, it feels more “app like” in its appearance, which projects a more mature experience.
Here’s a before and after image:
Before
<img style="max-width:1280px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/04/home-your-content_before.png" alt="Kentico Kontent UI Before image" />
 
After
<img style="max-width:1280px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/04/kentico-new-ui-1.png" alt="The new Kentico content UI" />
As previously noted, the new UI is designed to help enterprise teams find what they need and share their content across other departments. The updated design helps deliver on that promise by simplifying a familiar framework – allowing users to make the leap with limited friction.
<h2>Kontent Collections</h2>
Originally branded as Kontent Projects, one of the new upgrades in the latest release is the <a href="https://kontent.ai/specials/collections?menu=true">Collections</a> feature – which lets enterprises manage all their content in a single repository, allowing the content to be shared across teams and channels without losing any control.
Having a single repository brings multiple benefits. First and foremost, it eliminates content silos that lead to inconsistent brand standards and content duplication. It also centralizes governance around configurations, content models, and policies.
One of the biggest content challenges for enterprises is the sheer scale of content and the number of users spread across an organization. This is especially true for organizations with multi-national websites that need brand consistency across global regions.
<img style="max-width:858px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/04/collections_content_sharing.png" alt="Collections Content sharing" />
Kontent’s Collections offers centralized governance, where organizations can set user access in a single location. This minimizes the complexity while providing greater flexibility for different teams with varying requirements.
With Collections, organizations can:
<ul>
<li>create collections instead of separate projects</li>
<li>share anything between collections</li>
<li>restrict access to collections</li>
<li>customize collections governance</li>
</ul>
You can also create collections for teams, regions, websites, microsites, initiatives, and even cross-platform content hubs.
<img style="max-width:1283px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/04/create-collection.png" alt="image of the create collection screen" />
After you create a collection, you can configure access to it by assigning roles to individuals. This includes read access to global content, editorial access to team content, and more.
<img style="max-width:672px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/04/user-roles-collections-languages.png" alt="image of users roles screen" />
With the upgraded <a href="https://kontent.ai/specials/collections?menu=true">Collections</a> feature, teams can share content items across departments, websites, and experiences to ensure consistency and eliminate error-prone duplication. The goal is to improve efficiency and minimize the frustration that many enterprise content teams experience.
Kentico also features noteworthy capabilities like <a href="https://kontent.ai/specials/simultaneous-editing">Simultaneous</a>, which allows multiple editors to work on the same content without worrying about overwriting each other’s changes, and <a href="https://kontent.ai/blog/in-context-editing-the-best-way-to-update-website-content">In-Context Editing</a>, which lets editors update the website content right within the pages of their preview site.
If there’s one thing evident in this latest upgrade, it’s that Kentico is listening to their customers. While some platforms might forge ahead with uninformed enhancements, Kontent represents a true reflection of how a CMS platform engages with their users to shape the future of their product. They clearly understand the meaning of customer experience.
<h2>About Kentico Kontent</h2>
<a href="https://kontent.ai/">Kentico Kontent</a> is a leading headless CMS that empowers enterprise content teams to manage all their content in a single repository. Flexible content models, real-time collaboration, and workflow lead to faster content production, better consistency, and higher quality. Content is managed completely independent of the presentation, freeing developers to build engaging digital experiences using the technologies of their choice. Kontent’s customers include AC Milan, Oxford University, Konica Minolta, PPG Industries, and Vogue.

Kentico Kontent’s New User Interface Streamlines Enterprise Content Operations

paris-tuzun

Strapi, a leading open-source headless CMS, has announced the release of Strapi v3.6, which includes a highly anticipated content internationalization (i18n) feature as part of their Community Edition. Now, Strapi users will have the ability to create and manage content in multiple languages and locales for free and without limitations – and personalize messages delivered to target audiences based on language and geographic data.
Leveraging integrations with Strapi's draft and publish system and role-based access control, users will be able to manage their editing and publishing permissions based on specific locales. Updates to their API will also enable managers to fetch content based on location parameters.
In our exclusive discussion with <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/victorcoisne/">Victor Coisne</a>, Strapi's Vice President of Marketing, it's clear that internationalization was a big part of the CMS vendor's roadmap, and of significant importance to their growing base of global users. According to Coisne, there was deep internal discussion about whether Strapi would monetize this feature as other CMS platforms do. Offering free usage is a bold move, and illustrates a strong commitment to their community. 
Recently at <a href="https://conf.strapi.io/">StrapiConf</a>, the company also shared a preview of their upcoming Strapi v4 that is currently under development, and according to Coisne should be released around August. This new version will include an updated design system and core APIs that allow the broader ecosystem to easily create and maintain new plugins.
<h2>Evolving headless CMS capabilities</h2>
With more than 35,000 stars on GitHub, 600 contributors, and 3.5 million+ downloads, Strapi is the fastest-growing <a href="https://nodejs.org/en/">Node.js</a> CMS. Only nine months after the release of its <a href="https://strapi.io/enterprise">Enterprise Edition</a>, the company is seeing significant revenue growth, tripling customer count in Q1 2021 with Global 2000 companies including Rakuten, AECOM, Toyota, and eBay.
As a headless CMS, Strapi powers experiences across websites, mobile applications, and IoT devices – making it an ideal fit for the <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/top-jamstack-static-site-generators-for-2021/">JAMstack</a> (JavaScript, API and Markup). Strapi is designed to work with popular front-end frameworks including React, Gatsby, Vue.js , Next.js and other static site generators, and supports multiple databases as well as both REST and GraphQL APIs.
By adding internationalization to their v3.6, Strapi is expanding its global position as a headless CMS of choice. As the market continues to embrace digital transformation across industries, Strapi is investing in its open source community to stoke innovation, and has ambitious plans for growth.
“With Strapi v3.6, we are renewing our commitment to open-source innovation and giving the Global Strapi Community the power to easily create and manage content in multiple languages, so they can localize and personalize their content to deliver the right messages to each of their target audiences,” said Pierre Burgy, co-founder and CEO of Strapi. “With such strong growth of the Strapi platform, we expect to be doubling our team by this time next year, driving even more innovation.”
You can read more about the internationalization feature below.
<img style="max-width:1480px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/04/i18n-2.png" alt="content internalization" />
<h2>Create multilingual websites or apps</h2>
As noted, Strapi's internationalization will enable users to create and manage content in multiple languages and for multiple locales. A locale may represent not only a language, but also a country to which the exact version of content is related (for example, "en-GB" for English language and Great Britain, or "fr-CA" for French and Canada). This added nuance can hyper-focus the content accuracy of a website or app, allowing organizations to better engage with the right audiences.  
<h2>Personalize and localize content</h2>
Content internationalization is more than just translating text. It’s about customizing messages to target audiences, taking into account their language and geographic location. With Strapi's internationalization, content is displayed for each locale based on content types. For example, if a company has an e-commerce website, they can select which product pages are displayed in French, Portuguese, or Mandarin. This level of localization is what enables a global digital strategy to work across borders and languages. 
<h2>Set up efficient publishing workflows</h2>
Managing multiple languages in one admin panel may sound like a challenging task, but Strapi has addressed it head-on. Below are some of the key attributes that make Strapi's internationalization ideal for content operations teams:
<ul>
<li>Browse content by locales: In the list view, users can see all the content of one locale and easily switch between locales to see all related entries. For example, when opening a list of articles on a website, a user will only see the entries in English and can switch between locales to see the entries in other languages.</li>
</ul>
<img style="max-width:1480px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/04/image1-copy.png" alt="content locales view" />
When editing content (for example, a particular article on a website or a product page), users can also switch between different locales and automatically copy and paste content from one locale to another without opening multiple tabs.
<img style="max-width:1480px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/04/image3.png" alt="edit content screen" />
<ul>
<li>Choose what locale should be displayed first: With Strapi, users can set up a default locale, which will be displayed whenever they add content to a new content type or open the list of entries. Having a default locale makes it more comfortable to create and edit content. </li>
</ul>
<img style="max-width:1480px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/04/image4.png" alt="choose locales screen" />
<ul>
<li>Keep specific content the same for all locales: If some of the content on a website or app needs to be the same – regardless of language – users can disable localization for any field or content type. This way, when creating a new version, the non-localized fields will already contain content. When editing the entries of non-localized fields, they will automatically be updated in all locales. This can save a lot of time when making updates or adding new versions. </li>
<li>Collaborate effectively with granular permissions: Users can also add granular CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) permissions for each locale to different roles and users, including translators, content editors, marketers, or country managers. Since internationalization is integrated with Strapi's <a href="https://strapi.io/blog/announcing-a-new-draft-and-publish-feature">Draft &amp; Publish system</a>, administrators will have full control of who can access, modify, and publish entries in different locales – making the whole process secure and efficient. </li>
</ul>
<img style="max-width:1480px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/04/image2.png" alt="user access control panel" />
<h2>API updates</h2>
As mentioned, Strapi has updated its API to fetch content by locale. A localizations field is added to every content type when the internationalization feature is activated, so if a developer creates an entry from the API, it’s now possible to specify the locale for which an entry should be created – or create new locales from an existing entry. 
<h2>Try Strapi's Content Internationalization </h2>
Since Strapi's content internationalization is a plugin, users will need to enable it in settings after updating to v3.6. Once activated, all existing content will be associated with the default locale that a user sets (which starts as English but can easily be modified). You can also learn more about content internationalization in their latest <a href="https://strapi.io/blog/announcing-content-internationalization-v3-6">blog post</a> or check out their <a href="https://strapi.io/demo" target="_blank">hosted Strapi CMS demo</a> which features sample data for a complete experience.
<h2>What else is in the latest Strapi release?</h2>
Here are a few recent updates and resources:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://strapi.io/blog/announcing-the-strapi-starter-cli" target="_blank">Starters CLI release</a></li>
<li><a href="https://strapi.io/blog/introducing-sentry-plugin" target="_blank">Sentry plugin for Strapi</a></li>
<li><a href="https://strapi.io/blog/v3-5-sentry-plugin-sso-authentication" target="_blank">SSO Authentication for admin panel</a></li>
</ul>
Check out their <a href="http://strapi.io/changelog" target="_blank">changelog</a> for more information about updates and fixes. 
<h2>About Strapi</h2>
<a href="http://strapi.io" target="_blank">Strapi</a> is the leading open-source headless CMS, giving developers the freedom to use their favorite tools and frameworks while helping editors easily manage their content and distribute it to any devices or channels. The remote-first company has offices in Paris and San Francisco, scaling its team globally. Strapi, Inc. is venture-backed by Index Ventures, Accel and Stride.VC as well as notable angel investors and open-source experts.

Strapi Headless CMS Announces v3.6 with Free Content Internationalization

cms-critic-staff

OpenText, an Enterprise Information Management (EIM) platform, has <a href="https://www.opentext.com/about/press-releases?id=E3D3BCD028D24EF6A1F6782F238DE862" target="_blank">announced</a> two new content services platforms: <a href="http://www.opentext.com/core-content" target="_blank">OpenText Core Content</a> and <a href="http://www.opentext.com/core-case" target="_blank">OpenText Core Case Management</a>.
Both platforms are a part of <a href="https://www.opentext.com/about/press-releases?id=AE94CFC185174B16A949366534C0E403" target="_blank">OpenText Cloud Editions (CE)</a> and were unveiled during the keynote address at the <a href="https://www.opentext.com/opentext-world/europe" target="_blank">OpenText World Europe</a> event. CE provides customers with greater choice, enabling them to run their software anywhere – off-cloud, in a private cloud, in a public cloud, or through cloud API services.
OpenText Cloud Editions are cloud-native, helping users to accelerate innovation and simplify app management. The two new content services join CE’s AppsWorks, AI and Analytics, Customer Experience, eDiscovery, and Security solutions.
“The future of the workplace is digital. Organizations today need digital business process solutions that are quick and simple to deploy, configure, govern, and use,” said Mark J. Barrenechea, OpenText CEO &amp; CTO. “Core Content and Core Case Management deliver the strong records management, case management, API’s, and integration into leading applications that OpenText is recognized for – all delivered as a simple-to-deploy, multi-tenant cloud application.”
Within OpenText Cloud Editions 21.2, OpenText Core Content and OpenText Core Case Management are multi-tenant cloud offerings that are quick and easy to deploy – and can be tailored to address unique lines of business, departmental, and industry needs.
<h3>OpenText Core Content</h3>
OpenText Core Content offers robust content management capabilities and key integrations with leading business applications like the <a href="https://www.sap.com/products/s4hana-erp.html" target="_blank">SAP S/4HANA Cloud</a> and its intelligent ERP system. Some key attributes of OpenText Core Content include:
<ul>
<li>Customizability: OpenText Core Content features template-based business workspaces with team access to content. This enables users to keep everyone on the same page while boosting productivity and collaboration with capabilities like viewing, annotation, and workflows. Core Content’s Smart View UI feature allows users to customize their widgets and dashboards as shown:</li>
</ul>
<img style="max-width:768px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/04/core-content-ui.jpg" alt="Core Content UI" />
<ul>
<li>Ease of deployment: OpenText Core Content is easy to deploy, maintain, and update, requiring little (or no) IT involvement. With Core Content, organizations can leverage out-of-the-box, use-case templates that fit business process needs, and create custom case flows with zero coding.</li>
<li>Enhanced control and governance: OpenText Core Compliance Services, powered by <a href="https://www.opentext.com/products-and-solutions/products/opentext-core-for-federated-compliance?_ga=2.120507848.1368938370.1617044304-192936264.1605283574" target="_blank">OpenText Core for Federated Compliance</a>, provide automated, comprehensive content lifecycle management for Core Content. It delivers an entirely SaaS-based solution to address governance needs across all corporate records and enterprise information holdings.</li>
</ul>
You can learn more about OpenText Core Content <a href="https://www.opentext.com/products-and-solutions/products/saas-content-services-platform?utm_source=core-conten" target="_blank">here</a>.
<h3>OpenText Core Case Management</h3>
With OpenText Core Case Management, users get a no-code SaaS application that empowers workers to make better decisions – and create, adjust, and monitor workflows and tasks in real-time while improving stakeholder visibility.
If you’re wondering what “Case Management” is, here’s a bit of context. According to the <a href="https://www.aiim.org/What-is-Case-Management" target="_blank">Association for Intelligent Information Management</a>, a “case” is any project, transaction, service or response that is “opened” and “closed” over a period of time to achieve resolution of a problem, claim, request, proposal, development, or other complex activity. It is likely to involve multiple persons inside and outside of the organization, with varying relationships to each other, as well as multiple documents and messages.
A simple example of a case is car insurance. It involves many types of information from many sources such as accident reports, body shop quotes, and more. All of this information is collected, analyzed, and summarized to help find a resolution.
OpenText Core Case Management helps businesses by:
<ul>
<li>Improving decision-making: Access all information and collaborate with stakeholders in a unified workspace for smarter, more informed decisions.</li>
<li>Increasing productivity: Create, track and manage cases with a centralized dashboard for a single view of tasks, approvals and case status.</li>
<li>Expanding visibility: Enable internal and external stakeholders to visualize information via dashboards, widgets, and notifications for greater real-time insight.</li>
<li>Accelerating case resolution: Eliminate manual, disjointed processes with seamless access to case information and easily create ad hoc tasks and workflows.</li>
</ul>
You can learn more about OpenText Core Case Management <a href="https://www.opentext.com/products-and-solutions/products/saas-case-management?utm_source=core-case" target="_blank">here</a>.
<h2>17 consecutive years on the Gartner Magic Quadrant</h2>
OpenText has been included in the Leaders quadrant of the <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/3993178/magic-quadrant-for-content-services-platforms">2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Content Services Platforms (CSP)</a> – marking its 17th consecutive year. Being one of Canada’s largest software companies, OpenText has a big global presence and a strong ecosystem of over 600 international partners to implement and support multinational clients. Its deep partnership with SAP and its strategy of in-market acquisition have made it number one in the overall CSP market share.
<img style="max-width:570px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/04/figure_1_magic_quadrant_for_content_services_platforms.png" alt="2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Content Services Platforms" />
<h2>About OpenText</h2>
<a href="https://www.opentext.com/" target="_blank">OpenText</a> is a leading Enterprise Information Management (EIM) company that enables organizations to gain insight through market leading information management solutions, powered by OpenText Cloud Editions. OpenText software applications manage content or unstructured data for large companies, government agencies, and professional service firms. OpenText aims its products at addressing information management requirements, including management of large volumes of content, compliance with regulatory requirements, and mobile and online experience management.

OpenText Adds New Content Services to Power Modern Work in the Cloud

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If you are reading these lines, there’s a fair chance that you’ve worked with content management systems for some time and perhaps have even used multiple different systems.
Now, if you close your eyes for a moment: Try to pretend that you don’t know much about CMS and the confusing marketplace. And then put yourself in the shoes of a buyer - a customer who needs a new CMS to power their digital experience. How would you navigate and make sense of it all?
Would you look at analyst reports? Vendor websites talking about DXP with CMS appearing below the fold? Would you rely on your digital agency of choice? There are many options, many considerations, and it’s quite confusing, to be blunt. Perhaps even more so now than twenty years ago, and to add some more pressure: Today your website is much more important than back then.
In this post, I’ll try to help you make sense of it all. Based on input from the CMS Expert community, I hope you’ll leave with some helpful and useful guidance to make sense of it all. Let’s start with going back in time to understand why it’s not easy.
<h3>Understand the CMS problem before solving it</h3>
Twenty years ago, I worked at a CMS vendor based outside Frankfurt, Germany and I thought I knew all there was to know about the crowded, confusing, and immature marketplace for content management systems.
Or perhaps rather, I was pretty sure I had a firm grip on what buyers needed, how to address the challenges, and how to navigate the still young marketplace.
Little did I know that outside my echo chamber, there was so much more to learn and understand.
Having worked for four years in various pre-sales, consulting, and product management roles, I had the privilege of visiting customers, prospects, and partners and seeing many different organizations behind the scenes. We also frequently ran into competitors and our partners also worked with multiple vendors.
You might think that back then, CMS was basically publishing webpages. It was much more. Much of the feature set you’ll find today was also there back in 2001. There was personalization, static or dynamic content, caching, workflows, mobile content, and much more.
My training was that CMS covered the digital content lifecycle from the cradle to the grave:
<ul>
<li>Content acquisition, like from existing sources, databases, external repositories</li>
<li>Content creation</li>
<li>Composition</li>
<li>Delivery</li>
<li>Archiving</li>
</ul>
Few CMS vendors cared much about archiving. Some vendors only covered the first 2 or 3 bullets and would later be known as headless. Some focused mostly on the last bullets and others tried to do it all.
And that’s the problem in a nutshell: An almost endless amount of use cases. If you then add plenty of room for innovation, the power of digital transformation and increasing spend, then you know why this space hasn’t exactly consolidated as some analysts predicted back then. Instead, it’s become more crowded and more confusing.
Before we move on, there’s also an important piece of good news: Thankfully, many more projects are succeeding. Let’s look at how you can find your way through the CMS maze.
<h3>Focus on your projects, but do your CMS homework</h3>
My preference is to look at how customers are doing it to identify patterns, but as the saying goes: All roads lead to Rome.
There are indeed many ways to smarten up and make sense of the CMS market. Irrespective of your path, I would encourage you to focus on your projects, your initiatives, and time-to-market. It requires many full-time jobs to stay on top of the CMS market – and it is a fast-moving market. Your job is probably to make a tool selection or to inform one and then move onto actually creating value. Keep that in mind so that you don’t fall into CMS analysis paralysis.
In my previous post, I shared <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/what-can-we-learn-from-the-w3c-cms-selection-process/">what we can learn from the W3C CMS selection process</a>. In brief, this was a story about a public tender with requirements, a strong emphasis on accessibility, and a selection process led by a customer in close collaboration with a digital agency.
Recognizing that you and your organization don’t know everything about the problem at hand at the beginning is a good place to start.
Leave some time and budget for learning. In particular, as you’ll run into confusing and contradicting messaging along the way.
Actually, when it comes to learning, and before picking one or multiple CMS vendors, now would be a good time to read a book like<a href="https://deanebarker.net/books/"> Real World Content Modeling by Deane Barker</a>. It’s absolutely worthwhile to know what you want to do with your content before you put it in a new CMS. I've written more about the book in this piece: <a href="https://www.boye-co.com/blog/2019/12/11/happy-editors-make-better-content" rel="noopener noreferrer">Happy editors make better content</a>.
You might also want to make key decisions about:
<ul>
<li>Who will own the experience?</li>
<li>What about headless?</li>
<li>How will you allow for interoperability?</li>
</ul>
So far, so good? Let’s move on to how to get more clarity and make sense of it all.
<h3>Getting ready to set sail in the sea of content management systems</h3>
Moving on from your own requirements and key initiatives, some customers turn to industry analysts. Several of them cover this space, although some today prefer DXP (Digital Experience Platforms).
Recently, Gartner released their 2021 Magic Quadrant for DXP, which covers key trends and vendors. A good place to start is this post with <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/key-takeaways-from-gartners-2021-magic-quadrant-for-digital-experience-platforms/">Key Takeaways from Gartner’s 2021 Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms</a>. To name just a few vendors included: In the leaders’ quadrant, you’ll find quite different vendors like Sitecore and Liferay, while Salesforce is rated as a challenger and Magnolia introduced as a niche player.
Forrester also came up with an Agile CMS report. In the evaluation, Adobe was listed as an agile CMS, <a href="https://www.boye-co.com/vendors/contentful">Contentful</a> is a strong performer and Acquia is also in there. These are quite different vendors with quite different systems. If you read the report, you can find both an overview of Agile CMS market trends and evaluations of 15 vendors’ offerings, strategy, and market presence. I haven’t yet heard customers ask for an agile CMS, but sometimes analysts do start a trend.
Traditionally, open-source options are missing from the major analyst reports. Some analysts have revenue requirements for inclusion, which makes it hard, while others look at global adoption or other criteria.
Besides the industry analysts, I would rather recommend turning to your digital agency or agencies of choice. How about asking them for their recommendations? They probably know you well and also have a decent understanding of the CMS marketplace. There’s good guidance to be found among trusted advisors whose jobs and businesses depend on getting your project across the finishing line.
Finally, as you are out in the open waters and swimming in the sea. You’ll likely discover vendors that you hadn’t heard about in advance. Some will try to change the game by turning your attention to their approach, their unique feature, and why you should choose them. That’s all normal and a part of it. Keep an open mind, but do try to keep the focus on your projects. Time spent talking to references is well spent.
Think you need a life jacket? In the final chapter, I’ll do my best to make sure you don’t drown.
<h3>Inconvenient truths about the CMS marketplace</h3>
You might think that after all these years, a helpful vendor or digital agency should be able to easily size up your project and tell you what it will take in terms of budget and team size to swim safely. Unfortunately, that’s not the case.
You’ll need to speak to multiple vendors, and ideally, multiple digital agencies to get the best proposal on the table. You’ll probably find quite different pricing and sizing in their suggestions, and you might also need to change course along the way, but that’s a part of it.
Do try to seek inspiration from peers. That’s a key part of going to conferences or attending something like our <a href="https://www.boye-co.com/groups/cms-experts">CMS Expert community</a>. By speaking to peers, you’ll get the insider story on the good, the bad, and the ugly. You’ll probably hear something on governance, working with the agency, and helpful insights on their CMS. As always: The devil is in the details.
Finally, a word on risk: Surely, there’s a difference between picking a regional vendor like Norwegian <a href="https://www.boye-co.com/vendors/enonic">Enonic</a> or a global powerhouse like Adobe. Yes, but just because Adobe is big doesn’t necessarily mean that they are more committed and more willing to invest and stay in the CMS space compared to smaller and lesser-known vendors. Just a few examples:
<ul>
<li>IBM sold their CMS offering to HCL</li>
<li>Microsoft discontinued their CMS</li>
<li>Interwoven was big back then but acquired by Autonomy</li>
</ul>
To be fair, there are still customers using IBM, Microsoft, and Interwoven to power their website. Just please don’t discount smaller vendors as riskier than larger ones.
Good luck!
P.S. – Deane Barker also wrote a recommended book on the topic that is packed with valuable lessons: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Things-You-Should-Know-Technology-ebook/dp/B086SCGCN8">Things You Should Know: 25 Lessons I've Learned About Selecting Content Technology and Services</a>
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How to make sense of the CMS market in 2021

janus-boye

It might sound repetitive, but it’s been another month packed with acquisitions, big investments, and major announcements from across the CMS and DXP landscape. The consolidation streak continues, particularly as enterprise platforms hunt for customer data and digital experience capabilities to gain a competitive edge – or simply keep up.
We’ve covered some head-spinning moments this March, from <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/optimizely-acquires-customer-data-platform-zaius/">Optimizely buying CDP player Zaius</a>, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/hyland-enters-agreement-to-acquire-nuxeo/">Hyland agreeing to acquire Nuxeo</a>, and the real doozy of <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/sitecore-acquires-boxever-and-four51/">Sitecore snapping up Boxever and Four51</a> at the same time.
We also covered <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/gatsby-unveils-v3-0-cloud-hosting-and-more-at-gatsbyconf-2021/">GatsbyConf 2021</a>, where Gatsby unveiled its version 3.0 along with cloud hosting enhancements and key partnerships. The event was sponsored by several CMS platforms, reinforcing the connective tissue between these communities and the growth opportunities within the JAMstack.
Adobe also made the news cycle, perhaps not content with its reign in the lead position on both the <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/key-takeaways-from-gartners-2021-magic-quadrant-for-digital-experience-platforms/">Gartner 2021 MQ for DXP</a> and the Forrester Q1 Wave for Agile CMSes. This month, they announced the addition of new headless CMS capabilities and updates to its Commerce Integration Framework.
Here are some other stories we’ve been tracking:
<h3>Crownpeak Acquires Digital Experience Platform Provider e-Spirit</h3>
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<a href="http://www.crownpeak.com/">Crownpeak</a>, a US-based web content and experience management platform, has <a href="https://www.crownpeak.com/about/press-events/press-releases/crownpeak-acquires-digital-experience-platform-provider-e-spirit">announced</a> that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire <a href="https://www.e-spirit.com/us/homepage/">e-Spirit</a>. Headquartered in Germany, e-Spirit enables businesses to rapidly deliver personalized, content-rich experiences across online channels.
The acquisition combines Crownpeak’s SaaS-based web content management system and other best-of-breed offerings – which wrap digital quality, governance, and privacy into experience delivery – with e-Spirit’s key differentiators. This includes FirstSpirit, e-Spirit’s core product, which enables content-driven commerce experiences and personalization powered by artificial intelligence (AI).
According to company officials, the combination of Crownpeak and e-Spirit will create the most agile digital experience platform for brands – regardless of location or vertical – to efficiently orchestrate digital experiences that build trust and maximize customer lifetime value.
It's worth noting that Crownpeak and e-Spirit were in close proximity within the <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/key-takeaways-from-gartners-2021-magic-quadrant-for-digital-experience-platforms/">Niche Player quadrant</a> of the Gartner 2021 MQ for DXPs. In essence, Crownpeak "bought the competition," although e-Spirit actually has a slightly higher headcount.
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img style="max-width:600px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/01/gartner-magic-quadrant-for-digital-experience-platforms-2021.png" alt="Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms-2021" /></figure>
e-Sprit will provide Crownpeak with a hybrid headless architecture, which has become an essential component for modern CMS and DXP platforms. Whether that will give Crownpeak a competitive advantage against other niche players remains to be seen. One area that might bear fruit from the unification is that e-Spirit will expand Crownpeak’s access to the EMEA region.
<h3>Squarespace Raises $300 Million Investment Round At $10 Billion Valuation</h3>
<a href="https://www.squarespace.com/">Squarespace</a>, the popular website builder and e-Commerce platform, announced that it has raised $300 million in a new investment round – and is now valued at a whopping $10 billion. The news comes just two months after Squarespace <a href="https://newsroom.squarespace.com/blog/squarespace-confidential-s-1-submission">announced</a> their IPO in January.
The new investor docket includes some heavy-hitting market makers like Dragoneer, Tiger Global, D1 Capital Partners, Fidelity Management &amp; Research Company, funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. and Spruce House, with participation from existing investors Accel and General Atlantic.
“We’re thrilled to welcome our new investors as we continue scaling our product suite in service of our customers around the world,” said Squarespace Founder &amp; CEO Anthony Casalena.
Founded in 2003, Squarespace has built a stellar reputation as a small business website solution and competes with platforms like <a href="https://www.wix.com/">WIX</a> and <a href="https://www.weebly.com/">Weebly</a>. A “do it yourself” experience, Squarespace offers users a simple, code-free, subscription-based toolset for building your own website and adding transactional e-Commerce capabilities. It has become immensely popular, especially for artists, freelancers, and entrepreneurs who want beautiful, inexpensive, easy to manage experiences.
Hosting companies like <a href="https://www.godaddy.com/">GoDaddy</a> are also carving out a segment in of the SOHO/entrepreneur market space, offering a free website builder as part of their experience. Even marketing automation platforms are hungry to own the web layer, with players like <a href="https://mailchimp.com/">MailChimp</a> and <a href="https://www.constantcontact.com/">Constant Contact</a> adding web builders to their solutions.
On the more complex side of the do-it-yourself toolset, platforms like <a href="https://webflow.com/">Webflow</a> are offering a rich, dynamic builder with access to code, APIs, and a new CMS capability. Webflow also secured its own <a href="https://webflow.com/blog/webflow-series-b-funding">investment of $140 million</a> in a Series B this January (putting it at a $2.1 billion valuation).
Squarespace received a significant funding infusion of $200 million on a $1.7 billion valuation in December 2017. Their unprecedented growth – likely exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic and a shift to digital channels – has driven the outlook beyond the SMB sector. The future may include a more diversified portfolio of customers in the enterprise range, where their <a href="https://www.squarespace.com/select">Squarespace Select</a> offering is gaining ground.
<h3>WP Engine Launches Atlas, the Future of Headless WordPress</h3>
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<a href="https://wpengine.com/">WP Engine</a>, a leading WordPress digital experience platform, <a href="https://wpengine.com/atlas">introduced Atlas</a>, its new headless WordPress product line that enables exponentially faster dynamic sites with the flexibility and security that comes with headless solutions.
Delighting both developers and content publishers, Atlas brings together a modern development framework with powerful front-end Node.js hosting and headless WordPress – all in one complete package.
“Headless solutions are absolutely the future of enterprise WordPress, yet there isn’t one end-to-end solution out there that includes the dynamic Node.js layer, the static CDN layer and the Headless content management systems (CMS) layer, in one package,” said Jason Cohen, Founder and Chief Technology Officer at WP Engine.
As famous and iconic it is, WordPress has been “stuck” in the traditional category of CMSs, falling behind more modern headless or headless-hybrid platforms. This has been a significant drawback in a digital world that demands omnichannel solutions for distributing content. Atlas offers WP Engine an opportunity to shift the dynamics and develop new market potential around the headless play.
Today’s developers are under pressure to deliver highly-performant and secure omnichannel digital experiences that rank higher and convert better. To achieve that, they need a platform that easily scales and integrates with an increasing array of martech SaaS tools.
A headless WordPress essentially means no WordPress frontend. Companies that use an entirely headless solution typically host a separate JavaScript application for the frontend, which pulls specific WordPress data via APIs via the <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/rest-api/">WordPress REST API</a> or the <a href="https://www.wpgraphql.com/">WPGraphQL plugin</a>. With Atlas, WordPress will join the growing ranks of headless CMS solutions that are powering modern digital experiences.
“With Atlas, developers aren’t forced to choose between incredible site performance and dynamic experiences," said Cohen. "And they can keep the open-source CMS platform that drives 40% of the web, now upgraded to support developers’ modern architecture. It’s the best of all worlds.”
To learn more about Atlas from WP Engine, <a href="https://wpengine.com/atlas">click here</a>.
<h3>Siteimprove Releases New Study Guiding Manufacturers on Powerful Digital Engagement Strategies</h3>
<a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/siteimprove-seo-provides-all-in-one-capabilities-for-enhancing-search-performance/">Siteimprove</a>, an industry-leading accessibility scanning and monitoring solution provider, announced the release of a new study, “<a href="https://hello.siteimprove.com/en-us/content/report/consumerreport">Achieving Success in the Age of the Digital Consumer</a>.”
For the report, Siteimprove partnered with Adobe and Capgemini to survey 3,025 U.S. consumers to discover what key elements currently distinguish B2B and D2C digital experiences – and what consumers expect from online experiences and brand relationships.
Some key findings in the survey include:
<ul>
<li>83 percent of respondents said their online research experience is somewhat important to very important in the purchase process – with 43 percent saying it is very important.</li>
<li>Online influencers have now largely replaced retail employees as a primary pre-purchasing voice. While 52.69 percent of respondents indicated they still rely on word-of-mouth, 31.34 percent also turn to YouTube review videos, 11.47 percent take advantage of augmented-reality tools, and 9.22 percent use AI experiences to collect product information and insights.</li>
<li>Product information or reviews on a retailer’s website are considered the most important factor in an online purchase decision (37.85 percent).</li>
<li>Barriers to buying from the manufacturer were cited as inconsistent pricing (60.46 percent), lack of info on delivery, returns, poor UX, and poor checkout experience.</li>
<li>The majority of survey respondents (76.6 percent) indicated they abandon a website with poor UX in less than two minutes. As many as 37 percent of respondents move on after less than one minute.</li>
</ul>
To read the free report, visit <a href="https://hello.siteimprove.com/en-us/content/report/consumerreport">https://hello.siteimprove.com/en-us/content/report/consumerreport</a>.
<h3>Contentful Helps Businesses Build Digital Experiences Faster With New Compose + Launch Apps</h3>
<a href="https://www.contentful.com/">Contentful</a>, a leading content platform for digital business, <a href="https://www.contentful.com/blog/2021/03/16/launch-compose-release/">announced</a> the release of Contentful Compose + Launch – two apps that, together, significantly extend Contentful’s native capabilities for content teams.
Compose structures content into blocks, so it’s reusable across various digital experiences and channels. Compose was explicitly designed for non-technical users who prefer a more traditional content management system environment.
Launch enhances the ability of content teams to plan and schedule releases. Content pieces can be viewed together, managed as one project, and scheduled to publish in a flexible manner. Teams can easily manage and deliver content as part of large campaigns, such as a Black Friday sale or new product announcements. And campaign managers can use Launch to plan the release of content from a single destination, allowing teams to collaborate better and deliver faster.
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/03/contentful-content-schedule.jpg" alt="Contentful content schedule screen" /></figure>
To learn more about Compose + Launch, click <a href="https://www.contentful.com/blog/2021/03/16/launch-compose-release/">here</a>.
<h3>WordPress Releases Enhancements to Its Reusable Blocks with WordPress 5.7</h3>
WordPress officially released <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2021/02/wordpress-5-7-release-candidate/">WordPress 5.7</a> on March 9, 2021 – and as its first major release of 2021, it’s packed with a ton of new features and fixes.
Included in the update are several enhancements that make <a href="https://wordpress.org/news/2021/02/gutenberg-tutorial-reusable-blocks/">reusable blocks</a> more stable and easier to use. And now, they save automatically with the post when you click the “Update” button.
Reusable blocks have been a fixture in WordPress for quite some time. They are basically component blocks you can create and save – and use later in any post or page on a website. These blocks can be anything from a testimonial on your homepage, a “Subscribe to My Newsletter” box, a contact form, a survey, and more.
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To see the full list of features and updates that come with WordPress 5.7, visit the <a href="https://wordpress.org/support/wordpress-version/version-5-7/">WordPress support page</a>.

CMS Monthly Recap: Crownpeak Acquires e-Spirit, Squarespace Raises $300M Investment, WP Engine Launches Headless for WordPress, and More

Optimizely (formerly Episerver), a leading Digital Experience Platform, <a href="https://www.episerver.com/company/press-room/optimizely-strengthens-its-digital-experience-leadership-with-acquisition-of-customer-data-platform-zaius">announced today that it has acquired Zaius</a>, a Customer Data Platform (CDP).
The announcement comes just months after the company’s <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/episerver-to-acquire-optimizely-the-worlds-leading-experience-optimization-platform/">acquisition of Optimizely</a> last September, which led to <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/episerver-rebrands-as-optimizely-following-acquisition/">Episerver's rebranding</a> of its entire organization under the Optimizely banner.
“At Zaius, we’ve always believed that having the customer’s context was the unfair advantage to creating the most relevant experiences for customers,” said Spencer Pingry, co-founder and co-CEO of Zaius. “Analytics, segmentation, predictions, and personalization fueled by this context lead to experiences that drive customer loyalty. We are proud of how that has created growth for our customers and partners, and look forward to joining Optimizely to expand that story.”
<h3>The race for customer data</h3>
As enterprise content management (CMS) and digital experience (DXP) platforms battle for market share, customer data has become an almost essential component in the fight. With the purchase of Zaius, Optimizely is now positioned with a data-driven stack of services that will power digital experiences for customers – and elevate their competitive posture.
Breaking down "data silos" has become a critical objective for many organizations. According to <a href="https://learn.segment.com/customer-data-platform-report-2021/">Segment’s 2021 CDP Report</a>, 73% of companies say that a CDP will be instrumental to their customer experience strategy. Based on the metrics detailed in the report, 2020 saw exponential growth in customer data – and that only appears to be growing.
DXPs have recognized this problem, and are now making rapid progress towards unifying their data. For example, in the CDP layer of the stack, Segment is connecting customer data from fragmented corners of the ecosystem. This is why Twilio dropped a whopping $3.2 billion to <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/twilio-acquires-segment-for-3-2b-adds-market-leading-cdp-for-building-data-driven-apps/">acquire Segment</a> for building and powering data-driven apps.
Likewise, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/adobe-experience-cloud-adds-new-headless-cms-capabilities-updates-to-commerce-integration/">Adobe has invested</a> heavily in the customer data column, enhancing their platform capabilities for creating personalized, app-like experiences that leverage customer data from end to end. And most recently, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/sitecore-acquires-boxever-and-four51/">Sitecore acquired Boxever</a> – adding a proven CDP to their ecosystem.
<h3>Combining DXP and CDP capabilities</h3>
Optimizely lost little time catching up with the other big platforms (like Adobe), acknowledging that organizations can no longer rely on third-party customer data to personalize experiences. With Zaius, Optimizely will be able to bridge what has traditionally been disconnected data points and bring them into context with one another.
In addition to being data-driven, Optimizely aspires to be customer-centric. With Zaius, they will now be able to segment customer data in combination with their interactions, observe behaviors through experiments, and gain powerful insights. Having a complete understanding of all those factors will enable Optimizely’s customers to create hyper-personalized experiences and maximize their ROIs.
Zaius’s segmentation engine – coupled with Optimizely’s behavioral data from experiments and transactional insights from its content and commerce platform – will provide a new level of agility. Powered by out-of-the-box AI/ML predictions, the combined platform can unlock even more value by providing visibility and guidance through the lens of the customer.
Zaius also brings 50 pre-built app connectors to Optimizely – including <a href="https://www.shopify.com/">Shopify</a>, <a href="https://www.snowflake.com/">Snowflake</a>, and <a href="https://www.zendesk.com/">Zendesk</a> – which are available as one-click integrations. These connectors rapidly streamline the data integration process and automate identity resolution with consent management.
<h3>A Leader on the Gartner MQ for DXP</h3>
Optimizely has been recognized as a Leader for the second consecutive year in the <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/key-takeaways-from-gartners-2021-magic-quadrant-for-digital-experience-platforms/">Gartner 2021 Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms</a>, trailing right behind Adobe and <a href="https://www.acquia.com/">Acquia</a>.
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While the players have shifted positions from 2020, the crop of leaders has made significant investments or acquisitions in customer data platforms to compete more effectively.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Salesforce has been gaining ground against DXPs in the Challenger quadrant. As the world’s leading CRM and customer data platform, they have elevated their position by addressing key deficiencies on the experience and content management side – which includes the <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/salesforce-cms-review-evolving-a-crm-powerhouse-into-a-dxp-challenger/">launch of their own CMS</a> in late 2019.
<h3>What's next for Optimizely and Zaius</h3>
With the purchase of Zaius, Optimizely has fully stacked their deck – adding the all-important customer data piece to the puzzle. As they begin to integrate the core capabilities into their platform offering, it's conceivable that they may give Acquia and Adobe a run for their money in next year's MQ report.
As 2021 continues to unfold, we'll be watching the impact of this investment and how it continues to shape Optimizely's strategy.
<h3>About Optimizely (Episerver)</h3>
<a href="http://www.optimizely.com/">Optimizely</a> (Episerver) is on a mission to help people unlock their digital potential. With their leading digital experience platform (DXP), they equip teams with the tools and insights they need to create and optimize in new and novel ways. Now, companies can operate with data-driven confidence to create hyper-personalized experiences. Building sophisticated solutions has never been simpler. Optimizely’s 900+ partners and 1100+ employees in offices around the globe are proud to help more than 9,000 brands, including Toyota, Santander, eBay, KLM, and Mazda, enrich their customer lifetime value, increase revenue and grow their brands.
<h3>About Zaius</h3>
Zaius is the Activated Customer Data Platform that assists growing brands to achieve higher customer lifetime value by delivering relevance across the entire customer journey, from anonymous browsers to loyal shoppers. Zaius aligns entire organizations around customer data allowing digital leaders to create relevant customer experiences through harmonization of their data, understanding and action that differentiates their brand and drives customer loyalty.

Optimizely Acquires Customer Data Platform Zaius

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Salesforce CMS Review: Evolving a CRM Powerhouse into a DXP Challenger

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<a href="https://www.hyland.com/en">Hyland</a>, an enterprise content management (ECM) and process management provider, has <a href="https://news.hyland.com/hyland-enters-into-agreement-for-the-acquisition-of-nuxeo">signed an agreement</a> providing for exclusive negotiations to acquire <a href="https://www.nuxeo.com/">Nuxeo</a> – a content services and digital asset management (DAM) platform.
A leading ECM provider, Hyland is best known for its <a href="https://www.onbase.com/en">Onbase</a> and <a href="https://www.hyland.com/en/perceptive">Perceptive</a> content management products, which securely centralize enterprise content and deliver relevant information to users across a wide variety of industries – including healthcare, finance, insurance, higher education, and manufacturing.
Nuxeo offers a cloud-native, open-source, low-code platform with content services and DAM capabilities, among others.
“We’ve innovated an entirely modern platform that provides both enterprise-class content services and digital asset management capabilities," said Eric Barroca, CEO of Nuxeo. "And we look forward to bringing these capabilities to the Hyland portfolio as well as leveraging Hyland’s considerable global resources to deliver even greater success to our customers and partners."
<h3>A Leader on the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Content Services Platforms</h3>
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/03/figure_1_magic_quadrant_for_content_services_platforms.png" alt="Magic Quadrant for Content Services Platforms" style="max-width:570px" /></figure>
Hyland has been a consistent force in the ECM and content services landscape, commanding the second-place position in the Leader Quadrant of <a href="https://www.hyland.com/en/explore/gartner-magic-quadrant-for-content-services-platforms">Gartner’s 2020 Magic Quadrant for Content Services Platforms</a>.
While Hyland has been trailing right behind <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2020/12/08/over-200-million-users-rely-on-sharepoint-as-microsoft-is-again-recognized-as-a-leader-in-the-2020-gartner-content-services-platforms-magic-quadrant-report/#:~:text=Leading%20in%20the%20Gartner%20Content,Platforms%20Magic%20Quadrant%20for%202020.">Microsoft’s 365 platform</a> (fueled primarily by <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/sharepoint/collaboration">Sharepoint</a>), they were also being followed closely by <a href="https://www.alfresco.com/">Alfresco</a>, a fast-growing open-source content services platform that was gaining ground in the market but still viewed as a somewhat niche solution by large enterprises.
Following suit with many other CMS and DXP platforms in the last year, Hyland <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/hyland-acquires-alfresco-focuses-on-cloud-and-global-expansion-of-enterprise-cms/">acquired Alfresco</a> in 2020, eliminating their next closest competitor and changing the game in the leadership grid.
While buying a competitor is far from novel, Alfresco’s low-code tools – combined with its ability to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) services from <a href="https://www.alfresco.com/ecm-software/aws">cloud providers like AWS</a> – were likely key factors in Hyland's decision, enabling them to accelerate their modernization efforts.
<h3>Adding Nuxeo's low-code AI service and DAM capabilities</h3>
With the Nuxeo acquisition, Hyland is consuming another competitor – this time from the Visionary quadrant of Gartner's MQ for Content Services Platforms.
Nuxeo brings some unique assets to Hyland that may translate into significant advantages against Microsoft and Sharepoint. First, it gains <a href="https://www.nuxeo.com/content-services-platform/ai/">Nuxeo Insight</a> – an AI offering that enables customers to use their own data and content to train custom ML models for a variety of business applications. This includes enriching content with metadata, classifying people, products and records, automating forms processing, and more.
The critical advantage with Nuxeo Insight is that it generates ML models that are trained with a customer’s own data – rendering them far more accurate and insightful than typical AI services offered through public clouds (like AWS).
Nuxeo is also known for its strong enterprise <a href="https://www.nuxeo.com/solutions/dam-digital-asset-management/">DAM capabilities</a>, which provide out-of-the-box solutions for enterprises. Additionally, its large-scale repository – which includes NoSQL and distributed file system options – provides storage and scalability support for organizations with a large number of documents.
In fact, last year, Nuxeo proved its scalability performance with an <a href="https://benchmarks.nuxeo.com/11-billion-benchmark-story/">11-billion-object benchmark test</a> on AWS.
<h3>What does the Nuxeo acquisition mean for Hyland?</h3>
Considering some of Hyland’s core industry verticals – specifically finance – Nuxeo may be well worth the investment. Along with its cloud-native, low-code solutions, Nuxeo's open source community and AI-driven capabilities address key gaps in Hyland's modernization strategy, and will likely be a source of continued product innovation.
The transaction is expected to close in April 2021. Until that time, both companies will continue to operate as two companies. Upon transaction close, Nuxeo's business will be integrated into Hyland.
<h3>About Nuxeo</h3>
<a href="https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&amp;l=en&amp;o=3043355-1&amp;h=141805745&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nuxeo.com%2F%3Futm_source%3DPRNewswire%26utm_medium%3Dpress%2520release%26utm_campaign%3Dhitrust&amp;a=Nuxeo">Nuxeo</a>, the developer of the leading Content Services Platform, is reinventing <a href="https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&amp;l=en&amp;o=3043355-1&amp;h=1356444015&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nuxeo.com%2Fproducts%2Fenterprise-content-management%2F%3Futm_source%3DPRNewswire%26utm_medium%3Dpress%2520release%26utm_campaign%3Dhitrust&amp;a=enterprise+content+management">enterprise content management</a> (ECM) and <a href="https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&amp;l=en&amp;o=3043355-1&amp;h=3747046695&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nuxeo.com%2Fproducts%2Fdigital-asset-management%2F%3Futm_source%3DPRNewswire%26utm_medium%3Dpress%2520release%26utm_campaign%3Dhitrust&amp;a=digital+asset+management">digital asset management</a> (DAM). Nuxeo makes it easy to build smart content applications that enhance customer experiences, improve decision making, and accelerate products to market. Its cloud-native, low-code platform has been deployed by large enterprises worldwide. Customers like Electronic Arts, TBWA, ABN AMRO, and CVS have used Nuxeo's technology to transform the way they do business. Founded in 2000, the company is based in New York with offices across the United States, Europe, and Asia. Learn more at <a href="https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&amp;l=en&amp;o=3043355-1&amp;h=1092214406&amp;u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nuxeo.com%2F%3Futm_source%3DPRNewswire%26utm_medium%3Dpress%2520release%26utm_campaign%3Dhitrust&amp;a=www.nuxeo.com">www.nuxeo.com</a>.
<h3>About Hyland</h3>
<a href="https://www.hyland.com/">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">www.hyland.com</a>

Hyland Enters Agreement to Acquire Nuxeo

While the typical fanfare of a Las Vegas convention has been on a losing streak in the age of Covid, virtual events have emerged as a winning surrogate – especially for software companies looking to cultivate their user communities and make big announcements.
That was the case last week at <a href="https://gatsbyconf.com/">GatsbyConf 2021</a>, a free two-day meeting held by <a href="https://www.gatsbyjs.com/">Gatsby</a>. While the biggest news on the table was the unveiling of <a href="https://gatsbyjs.com/docs/reference/release-notes/v3.0">Gatsby v3.0</a>, our editorial team sat through a number of sessions, and we’ll cover some of the high points in this article.
Pandemic travel blues aside, the creators of the open-source JavaScript website framework <a href="https://github.com/gatsbyjs/gatsby">GatsbyJS</a> have been on a meteoric rise – <a href="https://www.gatsbyjs.com/blog/2020-05-27-announcing-series-b-funding/">raising $28 million</a> in Series B funding in 2020. This investment has certainly helped fuel their growth, but Gatsby’s thriving community of users is what's helping to shape their future.
What was clear during GatsbyConf is that Gatsby is listening to their base. This is reflected in the newly released v3.0, which sports several new features users have been pining for. This includes incremental builds for faster deployment and new image optimization capabilities that improve website speed and performance.
But that’s not all. Gatsby also announced the addition of <a href="https://www.gatsbyjs.com/products/cloud/hosting/">Gatsby Hosting</a> to its <a href="https://www.gatsbyjs.com/cloud/">Gatsby Cloud</a>, offering a true, end-to-end platform. Now, users can build websites and fully deploy on Gatsby Cloud – complete with a CDN – all without having to rely on a third-party provider.
<h3>The static site revolution</h3>
A bit of backdrop always helps – and with Gatsby, that backdrop is short. And on fire.
GatsbyJS was born in 2015 with a simple mission: make it easy for users to create a website with <a href="https://reactjs.org/">React</a>, a Javascript library for building user interfaces. In just a few short years, the platform has seen tens of thousands of developers flock to their open-source community, leveraging Gatsby as the go-to static site generator for creating a wide range of web experiences – from basic blogs to rich e-Commerce applications.
Gatsby’s React-based framework is built on the <a href="https://bejamas.io/blog/jamstack/?utm_source=thenewstack&amp;utm_medium=website&amp;utm_campaign=platform">JAMstack</a> (Javascript, APIs, and markup) and leverages a number of modern web technologies such as GraphQL. As a static site generator, Gatsby uses static files to build websites in the browser – not on the server – as a user enters each page.
By abstracting the database from the equation, Gatsby provides a lightweight website that takes less time to build and maintain – and delivers a lightning-fast load. With speed becoming one of the most important measures for a website’s performance, Gatsby has been powering websites with a competitive edge that reduces bounce rates while improving the overall customer experience.
<h3>Unifying developers and marketers</h3>
The battle between developers and marketers has been waged since the dawn of the modern web. Regularly at odds, Gatsby is focused on uniting the disparate realms – and this was the subject of several discussions during the conference.
"Our mission is to raise the quality of websites and the web by providing developers and marketers with the best tools,” said the Gatsby CEO Kyle Mathews. “We believe that great user experience depends on developers and marketers having great tools and workflows to rapidly collaborate on improving the user experience”
At GatsbyConf, there was talk about rich web experiences being the new norm and how teams of marketers, designers, and developers need to work both quickly and collaboratively to create websites that have great content – but also perform at the highest levels.
"It is not just developers who are building sites,” said Dustin Shau, VP of Product at Gatsby. “The interplay between developers and marketers is a key one to keep top of mind, and this is squarely the challenge we are trying to solve with Gatsby.”
<h3>A new era for headless CMS</h3>
To power the front end, Gatsby’s static websites rely on headless CMS platforms to manage content – providing the perfect marriage of lightweight frontend and backend capabilities.
For the unindoctrinated, a headless CMS is a backend-only content management system that behaves more like a content repository. It allows users to author content without being tied to a specific output – like, say, a rendered web page. Instead, it decouples the “head” and allows the CMS to display content on any device or presentation layer via API. This includes static site generators like Gatsby.
This blend of technologies gives developers the ability to create and deploy faster with incremental builds and collaborate on code. Meanwhile, marketers can use a headless CMS to make content edits, preview their changes, share them with their colleagues for feedback and publish when approved – all while gaming the speed and power of a static frontend.
As the landscape of headless and decoupled CMS players continues to expand, so too have the opportunities for Gatsby. They offer support for a number of <a href="https://www.gatsbyjs.com/docs/how-to/sourcing-data/headless-cms/">headless CMS services</a>, including <a href="https://ghost.org/pricing/">Ghost</a> and <a href="https://prismic.io/">Prismic</a> – and now feature a <a href="https://www.gatsbyjs.com/plugins/gatsby-source-wordpress/">WordPress Source plugin</a>.
On the e-Commerce side, Gatsby also has a <a href="https://www.gatsbyjs.com/plugins/gatsby-source-shopify/">Shopify Source Plugin</a> for pulling data into Gatsby from Shopify stores using the <a href="https://shopify.dev/docs/storefront-api">Shopify Storefront API</a>.
Back in October, Gatsby also <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/contentstack-and-gatsby-announce-partnership-to-power-ultra-fast-websites-with-headless-cms/">partnered with Contentstack</a>, a market-leading headless Content Experience Platform. The co-mingling enabled Contentstack to offer blazing-fast websites and applications on their CMS platform while allowing organizations to better unify their marketing and development teams through the unique collaboration.
<h3>Highlights from GatsbyConf 2021</h3>
With Gatsby v3.0 taking up most of the air, here are some of the big-ticket features that were covered during the event:
<ul>
<li>80% speed improvement in local development experience via incremental builds: Gatsby v3.0 uses incremental builds – meaning every time a site is changed, Gatsby only re-builds the parts that have been updated as opposed to the entire site. Waiting for every image and page to be processed in the development session made the building process more laborious, especially for large, media-rich websites.</li>
</ul>
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img style="max-width:700px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/03/incremental-build.jpg" alt="gatsby incremental build diagram" /></figure>
<ul>
<li>Intelligent caching in the Gatsby Cloud: Together with incremental builds, Gatsby Cloud uses intelligent caching and a real-time edge network to dramatically reduce the time spent waiting for deployments.</li>
<li>Better performance and a higher Lighthouse score: Websites built with Gatsby already have a solid reputation for being fast – and it’s mostly due to Gatsby’s image optimization feature. With v3.0, Gatsby graduated the <a href="https://www.gatsbyjs.com/docs/reference/built-in-components/gatsby-plugin-image/">gatsby-plugin-image</a> feature from BETA to general availability. The plugin takes advantage of the latest improvements in browser technology and image file formats. The API is also simpler and easier to learn, which streamlines the entire process.</li>
<li>Gatsby Hosting: After listening to user feedback on incremental builds in Gatsby Cloud, it was clear there was a bottleneck for publishing updates. With <a href="https://www.gatsbyjs.com/blog/introducing-gatsby-cloud-hosting">Gatsby Hosting</a>, this problem is all but resolved. By partnering with <a href="https://www.fastly.com/">Fastly</a>, a content delivery network (CDN) provider turned edge cloud company, Gatsby added a secure global CDN that both accelerates deployment time and content serving to customers.</li>
<li>Additional developer and admin features: Gatsby also added tools and resources in Gatsby Cloud to make managing websites even easier, including custom domains, SSL certificates, and Workspaces.</li>
<li>Upgrades to core dependencies: Last but not least, Gatsby bumped their core dependencies to the latest stable versions, including Node 12, Webpack 5, React 17, GrapQL 15, and ESLint 7. These upgrades will eliminate bugs that people may encounter with older versions and unlock new features Gatsby can leverage in future updates.</li>
</ul>
It’s worth noting Gatsby’s choice of GraphQL, which is typically used by large-scale enterprise CMS and DXP platforms. Most recently, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/adobe-experience-cloud-adds-new-headless-cms-capabilities-updates-to-commerce-integration/">Adobe added GraphQL for headless content delivery</a>. GraphQL might be seen as “overkill” for Gatsby, but using GraphQL makes it much easier to see where data is coming from – and how to change it.
<h3>What’s next for Gatsby?</h3>
As CEO Kyle Mathews noted, great user experience depends on both developers and marketers having great tools – and the ability to collaborate and ideate quickly.
While GatsbyConf 2021 was a springboard for highlighting their latest accomplishments, it’s clear that one of Gatsby’s strongest assets is their community of users – and this includes both developers and marketers. By listening and engaging, they’ve been able to focus their improvements on key areas that will have a real impact on customer satisfaction.
The JAMstack is getting jam-packed with static site generators, including <a href="https://nextjs.org/">Next.js</a>, <a href="https://gohugo.io/">Hugo</a>, <a href="https://jekyllrb.com/">Jekyll</a>, and others – many of which are deployable to <a href="https://www.netlify.com/">Netlify</a> and instantly connectable to Github. As these competitors build niche communities of developers, service may become one of the key differentiators for Gatsby. They have already demonstrated their commitment to listening to the voice of the customer – and this will serve them well in the future.
If you haven’t tried out Gatsby yet, you can <a href="https://www.gatsbyjs.com/get-started/">sign up for free</a>. If you’re wondering how to upgrade from v2 to v3, Gatsby also provides a <a href="https://www.gatsbyjs.com/docs/reference/release-notes/migrating-from-v2-to-v3">v2 to v3 migration guide</a>.
<h3>About Gatsby</h3>
Gatsby, Inc. is the creator of GatsbyJS, the leading JAMstack frontend framework and static site generator for React. GatsbyJS enables organizations to build highly performant, secure websites that can integrate data from multiple content management systems and other end points using its unique content hub architecture. Gatsby offers <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/Tracker?data=QsxpV3REm_gUHc0XrS8P_S-GvX_OgybDXJdd8yqDpE6HOXoszjUf6SoxitACU4HmmFrtFAS_DBY1k8pbTdmgW0fP3gVcsP5YSO9k4jwpMOU=">Gatsby Cloud</a>, a turnkey SaaS solution for building, previewing, deploying and managing Gatsby-based websites plus support and professional services to help organizations build modern websites. GatsbyJS is used in industries including financial services, retail, ecommerce, hospitality, SaaS and gaming by companies, including Venmo, Little Caesars, Braun, Raleigh, Quip, Figma, Meetup, Headspace, Draft Kings and Nintendo. Gatsby, Inc. is funded by Index Ventures, CRV and Trinity Ventures. Visit <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/Tracker?data=bdzydamtROY_gZXyiFdp7LM7Gh5xQZSp3EzX2cCGHcES9KWcf2X2nnmDE7YpGur-e7ZLlbuQcQcYsXePXH0Ihg==">www.gatsbyjs.com</a> to learn more.

Gatsby Unveils v3.0, Cloud Hosting, and More at GatsbyConf 2021

Another week, another big twist in the enterprise CMS and DXP battle for market dominance.
This time, it’s Sitecore making waves, proving there’s only one thing better than acquiring a strategic company – and that’s buying two at the same time.
Just weeks after unveiling a <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/sitecore-embarks-on-1-2b-investment-plan-to-accelerate-growth/">$1.2 billion investment plan</a> to fund innovation and accelerate growth, Sitecore <a href="https://www.sitecore.com/company/news-events/press-releases/2021/03/sitecore-acquires-boxever-and-four51">announced</a> it has entered into definitive agreements to acquire <a href="https://www.boxever.com/">Boxever</a>, a SaaS-based Customer Data Platform (CDP) providing decisioning and experimentation, and <a href="https://four51.io/">Four51</a>, a digital commerce pioneer that powers custom, highly scalable e-commerce B2B marketplace solutions.
When Sitecore originally announced its daring yet elusive investment plan in mid-January, there was a great deal of speculation about their strategy. Very little was revealed about how the funds would be used, or if any acquisitions were on the horizon.
With this move, Sitecore has answered a big part of the market's questions – and positioned themselves to better compete at the top with the likes of <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/acquia-digital-commerce-unifies-data-content-commerce-and-digital-merchandising/">Acquia</a>, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/episerver-to-acquire-optimizely-the-worlds-leading-experience-optimization-platform/">Optimizely</a> (formerly Episerver), and <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/adobe-experience-cloud-adds-new-headless-cms-capabilities-updates-to-commerce-integration/">Adobe</a>.
<h3>Adding Customer Data Platform (CDP) capabilities</h3>
One of the gaps that every CMS and DXP is racing to address exists around customer data. As brands and organizations demand greater personalization to optimize value and loyalty throughout the buying cycle, customer data is fueling the experience management engine – and having a CDP strategy is no longer a luxury, but a necessity.
Boxever has been on a roll with its CDP offering. The platform provides a rich, 360-degree view of customers with advanced segmentation, real-time decisioning, and experimentation capabilities. The system acts as the “brain” within an organization’s marketing stack, rendering every customer interaction more relevant and engaging.
With Boxever’s multi-dimensional capabilities, Sitecore will be able to enhance customer intelligence with AI-driven personalization tools, making it easy to capture, unify and activate customer data and deliver personalized experiences at scale.
<h3>Elevating headless e-commerce</h3>
As the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated digital transformation, brands discovered <a href="https://www.historyofheadlesscommerce.com/">headless commerce</a> – and leaned on its extensible framework to rapidly power their omnichannel strategies.
Four51’s API-first, headless e-commerce solution enables organizations to quickly and easily deliver engaging shopping experiences, helping them improve customer satisfaction, loyalty, and advocacy.
According to Sitecore, Four51’s feature set will complement their existing B2C commerce capabilities, enabling them to define the digital experience market in new ways. Additionally, the combined offering will require less upfront investment, with a horizon of continuous innovation and a dramatically shorter time to value.
<h3>Competing in a growing field of Digital Experience Platforms</h3>
For Sitecore, the pandemic has highlighted the need for a flexible and modern Digital Experience Platform (DXP) to provide organizations with both agility and intelligence to keep pace with changing demands.
While CMS platforms have begun to migrate their capabilities to meet the definition of a DXP, the goalposts continue to move – driven by rapidly accelerating innovation and consolidation.
Like its competitors, Sitecore recognizes the gaps and is making bold moves to shore them up. By integrating Boxever and Four51 with their proven suite of capabilities, Sitecore will be positioned to deliver a true content-to-commerce, SaaS-based DXP.
The resulting solution would enable businesses to deliver real-time, personalized digital experiences across every touchpoint, including the full buying cycle from order fulfillment to service beyond the sale. Technical organizations will also get an open stack built for modern architectures, with applications that are more intelligent, agile and always up-to-date.
<h3>Buyer’s remorse?</h3>
In their announcement, Sitecore acknowledged the skepticism surrounding the recent trend of acquisitions and consolidations in the marketing technology sector.
Still, the CDP train seems unstoppable. Gartner has <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/documents/3983209/market-guide-for-customer-data-platforms">predicted</a> that “70% of independent CDP vendors will be acquired by larger marketing technology vendors or will diversify through M&amp;A of their own to enter adjacent categories such as personalization, multichannel marketing, consent management, and/or MDM for customer data.”
But is all this activity paying off? Unfortunately, the data suggests that most of these strategic acquisitions have left customers feeling disappointed with the feature sets, particularly around personalization.
In fact, Gartner has further <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2019-12-02-gartner-predicts-80--of-marketers-will-abandon-person">predicted</a> that 80% of marketers who have invested in personalization will abandon their efforts due to the lack of ROI and distrust from consumers due to growing privacy issues. <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/03/google-says-it-wont-track-you-directly-in-the-future-as-it-phases-out-cookies.html">Google’s recent news</a> that it will phase out browser cookies for ads is the latest sign that the data privacy landscape is changing rapidly, and the impact on personalization will continue to evolve.
<h3>Consistent positioning from Gartner and Forrester</h3>
With the acquisition of Boxever and Four51, Sitecore is hoping to do more than just stay in the game – they clearly want to uplevel it. Perhaps these two pieces to the puzzle will prove highly advantageous to their near and long-term goals by offering a SaaS-based, API-first Digital Experience Platform that expands the breadth of their data and commerce capabilities.
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img style="max-width:600px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/01/gartner-magic-quadrant-for-digital-experience-platforms-2021.png" alt="Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms-2021" /></figure>
Recently, both Gartner and Forrester issued their 2021 reports for enterprise DXP and CMS. While Sitecore celebrated its fourth year in a row as a Leader on <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/key-takeaways-from-gartners-2021-magic-quadrant-for-digital-experience-platforms/">Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for DXPs</a>, it fell slightly behind both Acquia and Episerver (now Optimizely).
<a href="https://www.contentful.com/resources/forrester-wave-agile-cms-2021-report/">Forrester’s Q1 Wave Report for Agile CMSes</a> paints a similar picture. Since 2019, Sitecore has elevated its Strong Performer status, now straddling the fence of the Leaders circle with a wider market presence. But like the Gartner MQ, they are lagging behind Acquia and Optimizely – with Adobe maintaining its clear dominance in the category.
<h3>The impact of the CDP revolution</h3>
The recent announcement from Sitecore codified one thing: that CMS and DXP platforms are feverishly racing to add CDP to their core offerings.
According to <a href="https://learn.segment.com/customer-data-platform-report-2021/">Segment’s industry report</a> released last month, 73% of companies reported that a CDP will be critical to their customer experience, and integrating that capability can enhance the value of a content management or digital experience platform.
As a side note, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/twilio-acquires-segment-for-3-2b-adds-market-leading-cdp-for-building-data-driven-apps/">Segment was acquired by Twilio</a> in November 2020 for $3.2 billion. This move further demonstrates that CDPs are broadly viewed as a strategic acquisition for a multitude of technology platforms – particularly in a COVID-19 world where organizations require more access to data-driven tools to grow and compete.
The explosive growth in this category is made abundantly clear in the graph below:
<img style="max-width:700px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/03/segment-cdp-report-data-1024x695.png" alt="Segment cdp report data" />
<h3>What’s next for Sitecore?</h3>
They say timing is everything. When Sitecore announced their ambitious investment plan, it was just the latest in a high-intensity cycle of headlines from across the martech stack – and may have been perceived as a response to other newsworthy activities.
Unlike their rivals, the lack of clarity around their $1.2 billion investment stirred questions about their market goals, compounded by growing competitive friction and setbacks. But behind the scenes, they clearly had their sights set on key acquisitions that would accelerate their growth and address the aforementioned gaps in their strategy.
With the integration of Boxever and Four51, Sitecore can now deliver what the market needs: industry-leading content and customer data management, omnichannel delivery, headless commerce, testing, journey optimization, and more. With these capabilities in their toolkit, they are better positioned to compete at the top of the market.
The acquisitions are expected to close before the end of March 2021, and financial terms are not being disclosed. Upon completion, the CEOs of both Boxever and Four51 will take on leadership roles – and Sitecore expects to invest and expand in both Boxever's Dublin, Ireland and Four51’s Minneapolis, Minnesota locations.
Now, which marketing technology vendor is bold enough to score a hat trick... and buy three companies at once?
<h3>About Sitecore</h3>
Sitecore delivers a digital experience platform (DXP) that empowers the world’s smartest brands to build lifelong relationships with their customers. A highly decorated industry leader, Sitecore is the only company bringing together content, commerce, and data into one connected platform that delivers millions of digital experiences every day. Leading companies including American Express, ASOS, Carnival Cruise Lines, Kimberly-Clark, L’Oréal, and Volvo Cars rely on Sitecore to provide more engaging, personalized experiences for their customers. Learn more at <a href="https://www.sitecore.com/">Sitecore.com</a>.

Sitecore Acquires Boxever and Four51

Image of hand tapping on a mobile phone with Sitecore, Boxever, and Four51 logos on the front

Adobe is introducing new features to its Adobe Experience Cloud, including headless content management system (CMS) capabilities in their industry-leading <a href="https://www.adobe.com/marketing/experience-manager.html">Adobe Experience Manager</a> (AEM) and updates to their Commerce Integration Framework (CIF).
The features were announced at the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOVtXt-xx4c&amp;ab_channel=AdobeDevelopers">Adobe Developers Live</a> Conference, giving their community a first glimpse of how these dynamic enhancements will streamline the development of headless content delivery via GraphQL APIs, as well as enable users to create shoppable, app-like experiences that combine content and commerce.
The announcements were made just as the <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/key-takeaways-from-gartners-2021-magic-quadrant-for-digital-experience-platforms/">Gartner 2021 Magic Quadrant for DXPs</a> and the <a href="https://go.forrester.com/blogs/agile-cms-moves-the-market-beyond-headless-forresters-just-released-wave-evaluation/">2021 Forrester Wave for Agile CMSes</a> were being released. Both reports position Adobe as the top vendor, and the addition of these new features reinforces their leadership role in a rapidly-evolving market landscape.
<h3>What is Adobe Experience Cloud?</h3>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/03/adobe-journey-diagram.png" alt="Adobe Journey Diagram" />
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card kg-card-hascaption"></figure>
Adobe Experience Cloud is a comprehensive collection of integrated cloud applications and services that give enterprises the best-of-breed tools for marketing, analytics, advertising, and commerce. Adobe Experience Cloud also integrates with <a href="https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud.html">Adobe Creative Cloud</a>, which features an industry-standard suite of digital publishing and experience design tools – including <a href="https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop.html">Photoshop</a>.
Heading up the Leader quadrant of this year's Gartner MQ, Adobe reigns over the DXP landscape. Over the course of 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic elevated competition across the enterprise marketplace, forcing the CMS and DXP industries to accelerate their own transformation goals.
Adobe has remained in a solid leadership position because of its ubiquitous brand presence and continued commitment to innovation. The most recent enhancements to Adobe Experience Cloud reflect current market trends and elevated demand for headless and API-driven strategies – as well as a heightened need for integrating with customer data.
So, what’s new with Adobe Experience Cloud?
<h3>New Headless CMS Capabilities</h3>
Headless platforms have seen a dramatic rise in the CMS and DXP enterprise market over the last few years. This includes <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/contentstack-and-gatsby-announce-partnership-to-power-ultra-fast-websites-with-headless-cms/">Contentstack</a> – which was positioned as a <a href="https://www.contentstack.com/company/press/forrester-named-contentstack-strong-performer-agile-cms/?utm_source=facebook&amp;utm_medium=organic_social">Strong Performer</a> on the 2021 Forrester Wave Report for Agile CMSes.
To enable developers to distribute content across multiple touchpoints, Adobe is now introducing <a href="https://graphql.org/">GraphQL APIs</a> for headless content delivery. GraphQL is a data query language developed by Facebook and open-sourced in 2015 and is trusted by many big tech brands – including Pinterest, GitHub, Netflix, Shopify, Twitter, and more.
Facebook initially developed GraphQL because they needed a more powerful data-fetching API for their mobile applications. REST API has its limitations because whenever data requirements change, more endpoints are needed. GraphQL is typically served over HTTP via a single endpoint, which expresses the full set of capabilities of the service without the need for additional endpoints.
GraphQL also makes personalization much easier. For instance, using a REST API to retrieve a customer’s information (like recently viewed products and purchases), you need to send a fetch request for three endpoints: USER, USER_PURCHASE, and RECENTLY_VIEWED. This makes data fetching slow and cumbersome. With GraphQL, all you need to do is fetch the user object to gather all the data.
By leveraging GraphQL, Adobe is giving developers the power to deliver content to any touchpoint and access data across the Adobe ecosystem. For example, a mobile app developer can query marketing content from Adobe Experience Manager and have personalized results sent to the app, which renders in its UI. From there, a marketer can use Adobe Experience Manager’s authoring capabilities to add or edit marketing content across multiple devices and touchpoints – saving time and resources.
Siloing has been a significant problem in experience platforms. In the customer data (CDP) layer of the stack, Segment has been working to unify customer data from fragmented corners of the ecosystem. That’s why Twilio dropped a whopping $3.2 billion to <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/twilio-acquires-segment-for-3-2b-adds-market-leading-cdp-for-building-data-driven-apps/">acquire Segment</a> to build data-driven apps.
Likewise, Adobe has also recognized the deep gaps around siloed data. They are working to enhance their platform capabilities for creating personalized app-like experiences and leverage customer data from end to end.
<h3>Easy Integrations with Commerce Integration Framework</h3>
In addition to the headless capabilities, Adobe Experience Manager can now integrate and extend commerce services from <a href="https://magento.com/">Magento</a> and other commerce solutions through Adobe’s Commerce Integration Framework (CIF). CIF is built on rich APIs that can be easily extended, enabling a seamless storefront authoring experience in Adobe Experience Manager with faster-time-to-market at a lower cost.
Headless is quickly becoming a necessity for commerce platforms because it enables marketers and merchants to deliver world-class commerce experiences without the engineering burden. Nearly all the vendors who earned a place on the Gartner 2021 Magic Quadrant for DXPs offer headless capabilities; in fact, Adobe’s largest competitors – <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/acquia-digital-commerce-unifies-data-content-commerce-and-digital-merchandising/">Acquia</a> and <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/sitecore-updates-experience-platform-and-experience-commerce-releases-new-sitecore-content-hub/">Sitecore</a> – have been successfully advancing in the DXP Leaders quadrant by offering a headless play.
<h3>Headless in a hybrid world</h3>
While Adobe’s addition of headless isn’t a shocker, it represents the challenges that CMS and DXP platforms face. Content operators have multiple channels to contend with, and each consumes content in a different way. While one may access HTML, another requires JSON, and so on. These channels are also independent of one another, creating the aforementioned silo effect around content and data.
Adobe has always lead the way in CX and personalization, and headless is essential to every part of their experience ecosystem – specifically commerce. There are significant challenges with maintaining brand, message, and price consistency, as well as the cost of duplicating content from channel to channel. Now, Adobe provides more of a complete solution for managing the chaos.
One of the biggest issues that pure headless platforms face is the ability for content owners and marketers to visualize their channels. Adobe has clearly stated that developers are struggling to deliver cohesive content across every touchpoint (modern web, smartwatches, native apps, etc.) – and the limitations of headless are a big part of the pain.
By offering a hybrid platform, Adobe addresses some of the "multiverse" that exists by bringing websites and applications together with headless capabilities. That said, even Adobe doesn't have a solution for presenting digital signs, IoT devices, or other form factors within their CMS. At least not yet.
The real challenge for Adobe? Staying in the leadership position.

Adobe Experience Cloud Adds Headless CMS Capabilities, Updates to Commerce Integration Framework

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