Articles

Crownpeak Article

<hr /> <a target="_blank" href="https://www.crownpeak.com/homepage/">Crownpeak</a> is unwrapping an early gift this holiday season: a dynamo CEO who's ready to tackle growth in 2024. The digital experience platform (DXP) just announced that <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/samuel-monti-159aa03/">Samuel Monti</a> – a seasoned industry veteran and former CFO of <a target="_blank" href="https://www.epicor.com/en-us/">Epicor Software</a> – has assumed the mantle as Chief Executive Officer. The news comes at a pivotal moment for Crownpeak, which continues to hold a steady position in the Niche category of the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.gartner.com/reviews/market/digital-experience-platforms">Gartner Magic Quadrant for DXPs</a>. As the competitive field becomes more crowded and features commoditized, DXPs are looking for new ways to enhance their marketability – namely, with AI and composable solutions.This is where Crownpeak is leveraging its legacy of innovation to drive future success. Evidenced by its recent <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/crownpeak-and-netlify-partner-to-combine-web-platform-features-with-dxp-solutions">partnership announcement with Netlify</a>, the company is tapping the fabric of Netlify's cloud-based web hosting and deployment capabilities – and building on a shared vision for delivering composable solutions. “In the past three years, Crownpeak has undergone a major global expansion that included three successful acquisitions and tripling the company’s size,” said <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikelipps/">Michael Lipps</a>, Chairman of the Board at Crownpeak. “Samuel Monti, with his deep background working in financial markets, experience leading operational scale and strong track record of successful private equity outcomes, is well-positioned to drive this next, exciting phase of Crownpeak’s continued market expansion.”  <h3>A finance pro with software chops</h3>Monti is an accomplished leader with nearly three decades of experience in finance, operations, and C-suite leadership in both public and private equity companies. Prior to Crownpeak and Epicor, he served as CFO at <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/khoros/">Khoros</a>, a customer engagement platform, and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/mitratech/">Mitratech</a> – a software service provider specializing in compliance, risk, legal, and enterprise HR.According to the press release, Monti will be tasked with expanding the company’s successful growth, driving operational excellence, and cultivating technological innovation to deliver greater value for customers. “This is an exciting time to be joining Crownpeak,” said Monti. “Enterprises around the globe are making critical investments in digital experience platforms, and Crownpeak has experienced unprecedented growth and transformation as a company. As CEO, my mission is to continue that exceptional growth trajectory by expanding our product portfolio, advancing customer-centric innovation, and establishing the kind of strong community among our customers, prospects and partners that will drive future growth and success.” Monti received a BS in Accountancy from Miami University and an MBA in Finance from Case Western Reserve University.

Crownpeak Appoints Samuel Monti as Chief Executive Officer 

cms-critic-staff

<hr /> There's no question that <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/netlify">Netlify</a> can “amplify” how brands build, deploy, and scale their apps. Since 2014, it's been one of the leading platforms for running modern <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/top-jamstack-static-site-generators-for-2021">Jamstack</a> web applications in production. Developers love it because it's powerful yet simple, making it easy to integrate their choice of tools and collaborate with their teams in a more composable world.Now, the renowned cloud computing and hosting platform is partnering with <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/products/crownpeak">Crownpeak</a> – a digital experience platform (DXP) solutions provider – to empower businesses to deliver exceptional digital experiences effortlessly.Here's how: Crownpeak and Netlify will offer an end-to-end web development and deployment solution with accessible, optimized content at its core. Leveraging Crownpeak's DXP solutions, teams will be empowered to rapidly create and distribute compliant, personalized content across digital touchpoints. Meanwhile, Netlify will effectively “supercharge” the development process to support customer engagement and conversion through lightning-fast speeds and reliable web performances."Crownpeak and Netlify are joining forces to empower businesses to deliver exceptional digital experiences that drive growth and engagement," said <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/christoph-feddersen-218388a/">Christoph Feddersen</a>, VP of Technical Product Management at Crownpeak. "Our partnership reflects our shared commitment to simplifying digital experience management and hosting while fostering a composable approach for enterprise organizations to build powerful digital experience platforms."<h3>Powering content with innovative web hosting and deployment</h3>Over the years, Crownpeak has built a strong reputation in <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/what-is-a-content-management-system-cms">web content management</a> and digital experience solutions. A globally recognized player, the company continues to chart on the <a target="_blank" href="https://wire19.com/digital-experience-platform-vendors/">Gartner Magic Quadrant for DXPs</a> in a leading position amongst Niche players. With a focus on enabling organizations to create, manage, and optimize content across various digital channels, Crownpeak has proven itself a trusted partner for enterprises worldwide.Netlify, on the other hand, has revolutionized web hosting and deployment, offering an all-in-one solution that simplifies the process of building and delivering modern web projects. Its global content delivery network (CDN), serverless functions, and continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) capabilities have made it a go-to option for developers seeking efficiency and scalability.The partnership between Crownpeak and Netlify represents a convergence of strengths. Together, they aim to provide businesses with the tools and capabilities to enhance digital experiences and drive engagement across the web. From a technology integration perspective, Crownpeak's CMS – <a target="_blank" href="https://community.crownpeak.com/t5/FirstSpirit/ct-p/FirstSpirit">FirstSpirit</a> – seamlessly integrates with Netlify's hosting and deployment platform, enabling businesses to manage content, deliver personalized experiences, and deploy web projects more efficiently. Bolstered by Netlify, FirstSpirit ensures websites and applications can handle traffic spikes while maintaining fast load times and low latency. Both companies also prioritize security and compliance, providing customers with robust protection for their digital assets and customer data.In addition, the new partnership streamlines the development and deployment process, allowing users to harness the combined capabilities of Crownpeak and Netlify – resulting in faster time-to-market for digital initiatives. Businesses can also leverage Crownpeak's personalization and optimization features alongside Netlify's CDN, delivering optimized website performance and better user experiences. <h3>Future-proofing for composability</h3>Crownpeak and Netlify share a common vision for a <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/the-future-is-composable-a-conversation-with-new-mach-alliance-president-casper-rasmussen">composable future</a> – one where developers and marketers alike enjoy unmatched agility when bringing unique customer experiences to market. Netlify also met and exceeded several requirements Crownpeak was looking for in a progressive web app (PWA) development and deployment infrastructure.By harnessing the combined strengths of Crownpeak and Netlify, organizations can innovate at the speed of the business with unmatched flexibility rooted in its <a target="_blank" href="https://cmscritic.com/top-free-headless-cms-platforms">headless</a> approach. Brands can deliver consistent, high-performing experiences, no matter the customer’s channel or location. "We're excited to partner with Crownpeak to bring together our composable web platform with their content management solution," said <a target="_blank" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenvlarsen/">Steven Larsen</a>, VP of Partnerships and Ecosystems at Netlify. “Together, we're enabling businesses to create, deploy, and scale their digital projects with ease, ensuring they can deliver the exceptional experiences their customers expect.”The two also provide a future-proof, scalable architecture, enabling teams to create content once and repurpose it for any channel on an infrastructure that meets your growth, traffic, and performance demands. The combined solutions unify cross-functional teams on automated workflows – with all your integrations and APIs together on one powerful, serverless platform.

Crownpeak and Netlify Partner to Combine Web Platform Features with DXP Solutions

Founded back in 2001, <a href="http://www.crownpeak.com/" target="_blank">CrownPeak</a> is now a widely respected enterprise CMS solution.
CrownPeak isn't just popular though, it's also an award winner. After securing its place as a <a href="http://www.crownpeak.com/Press/CrownPeak/20141023-CrownPeak-Named-a-Visionary-by-Gartner-for-Web-Content-Management.aspx" target="_blank">“Visionary” in 2014 Magic Quadrant for Web Content Management (WCM) by Gartner, Inc</a>., CrownPeak recently went on to become the <a href="/2014-critics-choice-award-winner-best-cloud-cms-for-enterprise/" target="_blank">2014 Critics' Choice Award Winner for Best Cloud CMS For Enterprise</a>.
I recently had the pleasure of asking CrownPeak's CEO Jim Howard a few questions about the history of CrownPeak, some of the platform newest features, and where he sees the industry heading in 2015 and beyond.
<h2>About Jim Howard</h2>
Jim is focused on advancing CrownPeak's leadership in the cloud services marketplace. Under Jim’s leadership since its founding in 2001, CrownPeak has become the enterprise's only open cloud service for web experience management. Among the companies in the CrownPeak client roster today are Prudential, Diageo, Skype, MetLife, BNY/Mellon, Intuit, Oppenheimer, Zoetis and Eli Lilly.
<img style="max-width:200px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/jim_howard_headshot200x0.jpg" />
CrownPeak has been named as one of the 100 most influential companies in Online Content by eContent Magazine, named as a “cool vendor” and a “visionary” by Gartner, and was chosen as an
SIIA Codie Award finalist for Best Content Management Solution three years in a row.
Jim’s professional background combines extensive startup experience with years of software development and professional services delivery and management. He has spent the past eighteen years working with web content management, analytics and search technologies. Jim previously held senior executive positions in professional services management, sales, and operational management with companies such as USWeb, MarchFIRST, and successful startup, W3-design. Jim holds a degree in Chemistry from the University of Delaware.
<h2>The Interview</h2>
<h3>You founded CrownPeak in 2001 alongside Carl Sutter, the current Chief Product Officer. What were your aims at the start of this journey?</h3>
Carl and I came from one of the big internet consulting firms together. We had been installing and integrating on-premise Web Content Management packages for the previous few years. We both believed that the leading products in the WCM market at the time were simply too hard to get live and too hard to manage. These products essentially became bottlenecks to effective, agile digital marketing. We founded CrownPeak to offer a very cost-effective and results-focused set of WCM tools and services for the managers of websites – only delivered as a service, not installed. This was before the term Software-as-a-Service was even defined, although other startups like Salesforce were helping us to prove the delivery model.
CrownPeak became the first “CMS as a service” to target small to medium-sized businesses. We had to achieve the dual goal of highly efficient management for us and very cost-effective delivery for the customer.
Our engineers worked hard in those early years to build a single unified platform that separated the presentation layer for users on the front-end from all the infrastructure we managed for them on the back-end. That’s something we all take for granted today. From the beginning CrownPeak has been “true SaaS”, and we still offer the market’s only multi-tenant architecture. We’re also the first and only “low-code” development platform in the sector.
<h3>Have those aims changed at all?</h3>
Or, perhaps more appropriately, what additional aims have you adopted since co-founding CrownPeak, perhaps in response to evolutions within the industry?
We have evolved our capabilities a great deal over time, becoming a fully cloud-based solution that manages the entire digital customer experience across web, mobile, social. The platform now provides data-driven personalization, testing and targeting, digital asset management, search, behavioral analytics, and more than 60 out-of-the-box integrations with best of breed data and content sources.
We think we’re the most open and interoperable enterprise WCM on the planet! We have also evolved the company's focus. In 2010 we made a major shift to focus on the large enterprise customer because our platform offers scale and performance advantages to global companies with very complex web portfolios. One of the great advantages of our platform is the ability for many different project teams to implement projects simultaneously, sharing standard workflows, templates, designs, assets, integrations, content and data.
This ability to centralize the architecture but decentralize creation of great digital experiences is game changing for large distributed enterprises – particularly in highly regulated industries like healthcare and insurance where security and compliance are paramount.
<h3>Recently, you guys released a new Digital Asset Management Solution. Tell us a little bit about that.</h3>
We dedicate about a third of our product roadmap to feedback from customers, and back in 2013 they ranked Digital Asset Management as their top request. Because we are a cloud solution, when we roll out a new capability it’s available to every customer immediately. The DAM offering has met with huge success: we've seen almost 100% adoption.
This is a big deal because many DAM products go unused for web and mobile content management because they are “bolt-on” additions that don’t fully integrate.
This requires extra steps for designers and content authors when manipulating, deploying and managing digital media files. CrownPeak DAM is an integral part of our platform which means that assets can be curated, standardized and policed to design and launch consistently branded experiences on a global basis. We created a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlzLAmRXehg" target="_blank">3-minute video</a> recently that describes how it works.
<h3>CrownPeak boasts a heavy focus on making digital marketing easier for enterprises. Of course, the marketing vs IT balancing act has been the subject of debate for a long, long while now. How does CrownPeak respond to this very real issue?</h3>
I'm really glad you asked this because I think that debate is missing the point. Over the last decade, IT has faced their hardest challenge ever: to provide a direct web and mobile interface to every system they support for every line-of-business… and to do it securely. During this same period of incredible change, IT has also had to enable digital marketing, a relative newcomer to the world of technology automation.
There is no debate that IT must support marketing, and that it's been a challenge. We like to think that the CrownPeak brand is about giving greater freedomto both sides. For enterprise marketers, they become more self-reliant and free to launch great digital experiences faster. Their agencies receive greater creative freedom, flexibility and agility when designing those experiences. And technical folks, they are freed from complex integration problems and a flood of marketing support tickets!
However, there are two much more interesting debates that I end up writing a lot about <a href="http://www.crownpeak.com/Blog/Index.aspx" target="_blank">on my blog</a>. First, what is the role of marketing today? Second, how is IT tackling the challenge of developing a unified approach to customer experience management? In regard to these more relevant questions, we are focused on enabling digital marketing teams and other teams managing customer experiences to be highly successful and freed from the chores of software development.
We are also focused on enabling IT with a platform to deliver on their much broader customer experience management mandate. CrownPeak allows the entire organization to take advantage of the content, designs and integrations created by marketing across every other digital customer touchpoint. This means customer service and support – the sum total of digital experiences that inform greater customer loyalty and lifetime value.
<h3>2014 was a good year for CrownPeak, recognition wise. As many of our readers will know, you were named the winner of the 2014 Critics’ Choice Award for Best Cloud CMS For Enterprise.</h3>
<h3>Plus, Gartner recognized CrownPeak as a “Visionary” on its 2014 Magic Quadrant for Web Content Management, lauding the platform’s commitment to cloud delivery. Two impressive achievements.</h3>
Why do you think CrownPeak was so successful in these two instances?
We have gained customers and thus recognition because we have a much better solution to two key business problems. We allow global companies to standardize on a web and mobile platform without creating a bottleneck.
Second, we empower large enterprises to take advantage of the great content, design and integration work they have done with marketing and sales experiences and easily extend that work across all other lines-of-business. CrownPeak easily integrates with whatever marketing technology our customer is already using. Our platform has proven the scale and performance that enterprises expect. Here in the middle of our second decade, I’m very optimistic about what we’ve built and where we are headed.
<h3>With that being said, can you tell us anything about what 2015 has in store for CrownPeak clients?</h3>
CrownPeak is the enterprise’s only open cloud platform for managing web experiences, and remains a fiercely independent one at that! Looking out across other software sectors, cloud services have largely won the day because they are open, agile, more architecturally flexible, and provide significant economic advantages.
In 2015, CrownPeak customers will see more interoperability via a whole range of native content and data integrations with other cloud service providers. Our customers will gain added agility via a big push to make the platform even faster and simpler to implement. And our customers will gain further flexibility as we help them to manage the “front-end” of web applications built on the major stack providers like IBM and Force.com.
<h3>And finally, if you had just three short sentences to sum up why an enterprising company should choose CrownPeak over any other solution, what would they be?</h3>
CrownPeak is not for every customer out there.  We have built this platform for large, global organizations managing many web/mobile sites and looking to offer a unified digital customer experience.  So with that as the starting point:
First, CrownPeak provides the best solution ever built for global mult-site management because our open cloud platform eliminates the production bottleneck.
Second, due to our low-code development approach combined with our elastic computing architecture,  it's possible to centrally control the platform but decentralize creation of solutions.  In other words, every brand, market or functional group around the world can develop their solution on the central platform – taking advantage of all content, assets, designs, models and integrations – without risking compliance, security or performance.
Third, the platform can be used as a universal customer experience platform, where solutions created on the platform can be “front-ends” for portals, e-commerce, line-of-business applications, mobile app management, or secure document management repositories. Was that three sentences or four? Well anyway, you get the point! Thanks for asking.
<h3>Thank you for your time, Mr. Howard!</h3>
For more information on CrownPeak, <a href="http://www.crownpeak.com/" target="_blank">visit their website</a>.
Also, be sure to explore more of <a href="/products/crownpeak/" target="_blank">CrownPeak via our CMS Directory</a>.

Interview With Jim Howard, CEO of CrownPeak

mike-johnston

April brought Spring to many of us. While Covid-19 continues to cast a shadow of uncertainty over the world, it’s safe to say that the digital field is in full bloom.Last month was full of new announcements about upgrades and updates, primarily focused on content teams. Adobe, Contentful, Strapi, and Kentico Kontent all released new features that are designed to break down silos and deliver greater efficiency to users.Here are some of the highlights from the stories we’ve been tracking: <h2>Adobe Introduces Adobe Experience Manager Assets Essentials, Announces New Solutions to Improve E-commerce Experience for Adobe Commerce</h2><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/05/36391-benefits-media-library-essentials2xpngimg_.png" alt="Adobe media library essentials" />Adobe introduced its new <a target="_blank" href="https://business.adobe.com/products/experience-manager/assets/assets-essentials.html">Adobe Experience Manager Assets Essentials</a> – a lightweight edition of <a target="_blank" href="https://business.adobe.com/products/experience-manager/assets/aem-assets.html">Adobe Experience Manager Assets</a>. It offers a simplified user experience for marketing and creative pros to store, discover, and distribute digital assets across their teams. Assets Essentials will serve as the default asset management experience across Experience Cloud apps, starting with the new Adobe Journey Optimizer and later this year with Adobe Workfront.The new Assets Essentials provides a centralized workspace for the asset repository to store, share, and manage images, videos, documents, and other assets. It allows teams to create, assign, track, review, and approve tasks in a collaborative workspace. And of course, being an Adobe product, it supports all file types including full-sized Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, XD, and more.On the same day, Adobe also announced new capabilities for <a target="_blank" href="https://business.adobe.com/products/magento/magento-commerce.html">Adobe Commerce powered by Magento</a> (formerly Magento Commerce) that extend the intelligence of features like Product Recommendations and Live Search. An upcoming integration with <a target="_blank" href="https://acrobat.adobe.com/us/en/sign.html">Adobe Sign</a> means a more seamless commerce experience for any transactions that require e-signatures as part of the checkout process. <h2>The Digital World Mourns the Passing of Chuck Geschke, Co-found of Adobe and Father of the PDF</h2>There are many icons in the computer and software world, and some of the earliest pioneers have made significant contributions that we take for granted every day. One such notable creation: the ubiquitous Portable Document Format, otherwise known as the PDF.Today, we pay homage to Charles “Chuck” Geschke, the co-founder of Adobe, who died on April 16th at the age of 81. Not only did he help develop the PDF, but he drove innovation across desktop publishing, turning Photoshop into a cultural Webster’s reference – and Adobe into a powerhouse. Chuck radically changed the way people create, view, and share documents and images, and his impact cannot be overstated.Farewell to the Father of the PDF, and one of the great digital innovators of all time. <h2>Contentful Unveils New Features and Partner Apps at Second Annual Blueprints Conference</h2><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/05/contentful-logo-dark.png" alt="Contentful logo - dark" /><a target="_blank" href="https://www.contentful.com/">Contentful</a>, a leading enterprise headless CMS provider, <a target="_blank" href="https://press.contentful.com/197449-contentful-unveils-new-features-and-partner-apps-at-second-annual-blueprints-conference">announced</a> the release of new features and partner-built apps at its second annual <a target="_blank" href="https://www.contentful.com/blueprints-2021/">Blueprints</a> user conference.The new features include <a target="_blank" href="https://www.contentful.com/blog/2021/04/08/governance-tagging-metadata/">tags and permissions</a> that provide content teams greater flexibility and control over how they organize, find, and edit content – and manage permissions across the organization.These platform enhancements build on <a target="_blank" href="https://www.contentful.com/blog/2021/03/16/launch-compose-release/">the recent release of Compose + Launch</a> – two new Contentful apps that allow content authors, editors, and planners to adapt and publish content independently without having to rely on developer resources.Contentful also announced the release of several partner-built apps in the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.contentful.com/marketplace/">Contentful Marketplace</a>, including an app built by digital services provider <a target="_blank" href="https://portaltech.reply.com/portaltech/en/">Portaltech Reply</a> that connects Contentful with SAP Commerce Cloud – enabling businesses to adapt quickly to changing market conditions to deliver direct-to-consumer and omnichannel experiences.Other recently released partner-built apps for Contentful extend the platform's capabilities across personalization, e-commerce, translations, and video, including Uniform Optimize, Saleor Commerce, GlobalLink Connect by Translations.com, and Qencode Video Transcoding.Contentful recently earned the highest score possible in the partner ecosystem criterion – along with five other criteria – in the recent <a target="_blank" href="https://www.contentful.com/resources/forrester-wave-agile-cms-2021-report/">Forrester Wave™ Report for Agile Content Management Systems (CMSes)</a>. <h2>Crownpeak and ilumino Announce Strategic Partnership to Advance Digital Accessibility</h2><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/04/crownpeak_ilumino.jpg" alt="Crownpeak and ilumino logos in lockup format." /><a target="_blank" href="https://www.crownpeak.com/">Crownpeak</a>, a digital experience platform (DXP), <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cmscritic.com/crownpeak-and-ilumino-announce-strategic-partnership-to-advance-digital-accessibility/">has announced</a> a strategic partnership with <a target="_blank" href="https://www.ilumino.co/">ilumino</a>, a digital accessibility services and consulting firm. The two companies will offer an integrated solution that helps improve digital experiences for users with disabilities while evolving accessibility strategies for organizations.Together, Crownpeak and ilumino offer a single, integrated approach that evolves the accessibility model. The solution combines Crownpeak’s DQM technology, providing automated and ongoing scanning and auditing against WCAG guidelines, with <a target="_blank" href="https://www.ilumino.co/solutions/">ilumino’s expert services</a> – which focuses on nurturing a company’s “culture of accessibility.”Some noteworthy highlights of the Crownpeak + ilumino solution include:<ul><li>Accessibility and compliance dashboard – providing a “single source of truth” for automated and manual accessibility monitoring</li><li>Automated site scanning (enriched by manual testing) – enterprise-grade, multi-site scanning technology</li><li>Manual testing and consulting – performed by certified accessibility experts</li><li>In-house or guided remediation – tailored to each organization’s unique design and development workflows</li><li>Ongoing support – ensuring sustained compliance through a proactive approach</li><li>Accessibility pattern library – simplifying remediation and establishing long-term organizational assets</li><li>Litigation support – with expert review and consulting on any accessibility-related legal actions received</li><li>Accessibility statement – drafted to demonstrate an organization’s commitment to digital inclusion</li><li>Enterprise strategy – assisting with a prioritized roadmap and risk management</li></ul> <h2>Strapi Headless CMS Announces v3.6 with Free Content Internationalization</h2><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/04/i18n-2.png" alt="content internalization" />Strapi, a leading open-source headless CMS, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cmscritic.com/strapi-headless-cms-announces-v3-6-with-free-content-internationalization/">has announced</a> 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. 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.In our exclusive discussion with <a target="_blank" 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. <h2>Kentico Kontent Gets a Fresh New User Interface, Adds Features to Streamline Enterprise Content Operations</h2><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/04/kentico-new-ui-1.png" alt="The new Kentico content UI" />Kentico Kontent, a headless CMS, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.cmscritic.com/kentico-kontents-new-user-interface-streamlines-enterprise-content-operations/">announced</a> the launch of their new user interface, designed to help enterprise content teams execute their content operations faster.The new UI has a fresh, modern design approach that fuses an array of vibrant colors with plenty of contrast to emphasize important elements.Kentico Kontent also unveiled new upgrades in their latest release, including the Collections 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.With the Collections 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.

CMS Monthly Recap: Adobe Experience Manager Assets Essentials, Contentful Unveils New Features, Crownpeak Announces Partnership, and More

paris-tuzun

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>
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img style="max-width:650px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/03/crownpeak-espirit-logos.jpg" alt="crownpeak and espirit logos" /></figure>
<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.
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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

<a href="https://www.crownpeak.com/">Crownpeak</a>, a digital experience platform (DXP), has just announced a strategic partnership with <a href="https://www.ilumino.co/">ilumino</a>, a digital accessibility services and consulting firm. The two companies will offer an integrated solution that helps improve digital experiences for users with disabilities while evolving accessibility strategies for organizations.
The “Crownpeak + ilumino” solution combines Crownpeak’s automated accessibility scanning technology with ilumino’s deep subject matter expertise in online accessibility. It also addresses a key gap that exists with many CMS and DXP platforms: access to human-powered testing and remediation.
While the announcement was made today, the joint solution is already in use by several billion-dollar corporations, including a tech-enabled business services firm, a major U.S. insurance company, and a global top 10 consumer packaged goods company that operates in 190 countries and has hundreds of brands.
<h2>The growing demand for digital accessibility</h2>
With more than <a href="https://www.w3.org/WAI/business-case/">1 billion people</a> worldwide living with some form of disability, it’s more important than ever for organizations to deliver inclusive digital experiences. This need has been elevated during the Covid-19 pandemic as more consumers turned to digital channels to connect and transact. Accessibility is now a key imperative for brands, requiring websites and apps to accommodate for users with vision, hearing, mobility, cognitive, and other disabilities.
Crownpeak’s <a href="https://www.crownpeak.com/products/digital-quality-management/web-accessibility">Digital Quality Management</a> (DQM) technology represents a deeper investment from CMS and DXP platforms around digital equality. With these types of built-in scanning resources, organizations can deliver consistent digital experiences across an expanding array of digital touchpoints, from websites to mobile apps to the Internet of Things (IoT).
But as is often the case, technology is not enough. In fact, many tools require manual human insight to identify false positives and whitelist contextual issues. There are also a myriad of governance and compliance issues that limit the ability of any tool to solve problems on its own.
Crownpeak also says that most organizations take a “disjointed approach” to their accessibility. While content teams might adhere to standards and best practices – including the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (<a href="https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/">WCAG</a>) or  – they depend on basic browser plug-ins and third-party testers to generate one-time reports. This reflects a limited focus on remediation versus a long-term strategy around accessibility and content quality.
<h2>The Crownpeak + ilumino Solution</h2>
Together, Crownpeak and ilumino offer a single, integrated approach that evolves the accessibility model. The solution combines Crownpeak’s DQM technology, providing automated and ongoing scanning and auditing against WCAG guidelines, with <a href="https://www.ilumino.co/solutions/">ilumino’s expert services</a> – which focuses on nurturing a company’s “culture of accessibility.” ilumino also brings a seasoned practice around accessibility planning and strategy, so customers can unlock the value of their investment while meeting critical compliance benchmarks.
“All too often, when it comes to accessibility testing, companies receive ‘one-and-done’ reports on violations – with no real consideration of the company’s technical resources or its ability to actually act on the findings,” said Mark Reardon, CEO at ilumino. “So benefits achieved are often just temporary. Crownpeak + ilumino offers a better solution and, importantly, a path toward continual compliance. Our partnership combines the scalability of Crownpeak's software platform with our expert manual consulting services. Together, we offer organizations a global solution for their digital monitoring and compliance needs – all within the unique confines of their established branding and marketing, and all aimed at providing more inclusive digital experiences.”
By combining the speed and power of Crownpeak’s tools with the essential human side of ilumino’s accessibility testing and consulting, the partnership delivers a more complete solution for advancing digital accessibility. Additionally, the pairing brings best-of-breed capabilities to content operations, enabling teams to deliver more accessible user experiences while maintaining cohesive brand guidelines and business practices.
“Making the web more accessible to all is an imperative everyone can agree on – but challenges related to cost, complexity and knowledge gaps often hold companies back,” said Chris Sigala, general manager of Crownpeak’s Digital Quality Management business. “Crownpeak + ilumino resolves these issues. We’re encouraged by the results we’ve seen from the partnership in a relatively short amount of time – as large organizations are realizing immense value and impact by leveraging the strengths of both organizations in powering their digital accessibility programs.”
<h2>Key features</h2>
Some noteworthy highlights of the Crownpeak + ilumino solution include:
<ul>
<li>Accessibility and compliance dashboard – providing a “single-source of truth” for automated and manual accessibility monitoring</li>
<li>Automated site scanning (enriched by manual testing) – enterprise-grade, multi-site scanning technology</li>
<li>Manual testing and consulting – performed by certified accessibility experts</li>
<li>In-house or guided remediation – tailored to each organization’s unique design and development workflows</li>
<li>Ongoing support – ensuring sustained compliance through a proactive approach</li>
<li>Accessibility pattern library – simplifying remediation and establishing long-term organizational assets</li>
<li>Litigation support – with expert review and consulting on any accessibility-related legal actions received</li>
<li>Accessibility statement – drafted to demonstrate an organization’s commitment to digital inclusion</li>
<li>Enterprise strategy – assisting with a prioritized roadmap and risk management</li>
</ul>
<h2>What’s next for accessibility?</h2>
The partnership between Crownpeak and ilumino crystallizes the importance of digital equality for organizations, but it also represents a more evolved approach to accessibility. While meeting WCAG, ADA and AODA can help businesses mitigate risk and avoid lawsuits, we need a deeper understanding of what accessibility means to a diverse audience of consumers. Further, CMS and DXP platforms will require continuous investment in their “accessibility readiness” – and for now, that requires a balance of human support and insight.
That said, the accessibility landscape continues to shift. While the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed in 1990, it made no mention of websites or mobile apps. No one could have predicted their future ubiquity or importance, but the omission continues to plague the legal system. Despite having a working draft of the <a href="https://www.w3.org/TR/wcag-3.0/">W3C’s WCAG 3.0 guidelines</a>, the U.S. courts (among others) haven’t adopted clear laws or policies when it comes to digital accessibility.
In fact, this week, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a <a href="https://static.reuters.com/resources/media/editorial/20210408/gil--trialcourt.pdf">2017 trial-court ruling against Winn-Dixie</a> stores by a visually-impaired customer, concluding that their websites were not a “public accommodation” as the ADA defines the term. The ruling succeeds at creating further confusion, which is precisely why expertise from consultants like ilumino is so essential.
If you're interested in learning more, Crownpeak and ilumino will discuss their partnership during a webinar, “<a href="https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/7241109117052532235?source=PR">Getting Started on Your Digital Accessibility Journey</a>, on May 19, at 11 a.m. ET, where they will provide practical, actionable steps for creating and executing an effective digital accessibility program.
<h2>About ilumino</h2>
POWERING DIGITAL INCLUSION. ilumino is a digital accessibility company driven by a passion to help create a more inclusive online world through compliant technology that everyone can enjoy. A user-focused approach makes the accessibility of websites, software or mobile applications, documents, and digital platforms straightforward, scalable, and complementary of established branding. Custom solutions and expert services render lasting results by focusing on usability as well as compliance. For more information, please visit <a href="http://www.ilumino.co">www.ilumino.co</a>.
<h2>About Crownpeak</h2>
Crownpeak provides the leading digital experience platform. The industry’s only true SaaS-based solution, Crownpeak offers best-in-breed capabilities that empower companies to create, deploy and optimize omnichannel digital experiences – faster and easier than ever, and with zero infrastructure to maintain. Crownpeak also provides built-in solutions for digital governance and digital quality management. Relied on by the world’s top brands, these solutions make it easy for organizations to address WCAG and ADA accessibility compliance across their digital properties – while improving SEO, reducing bounce rates, increasing brand equity, and enhancing user experiences. With Crownpeak, companies can deliver high-impact, trust-building, accessible experiences at scale – improving engagement, loyalty and revenue. For more information, please visit <a href="http://www.crownpeak.com">www.crownpeak.com</a>.

Crownpeak and ilumino Announce Strategic Partnership to Advance Digital Accessibility

Crownpeak and ilumino logos in lockup format.

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<a href="http://www.crownpeak.com/?utm_source=cmscritic&amp;utm_medium=article&amp;utm_term=crownpeak&amp;utm_content=intro_to_crownpeak&amp;utm_campaign=web">CrownPeak</a>, the market leader in <a href="http://www.crownpeak.com/solutions/index.aspx?utm_source=cmscritic&amp;utm_medium=article&amp;utm_content=intro_to_crownpeak&amp;utm_campaign=web">cloud Web Content Management and Optimization</a>, offers a software-as-a-service solution built to empower marketers to develop and deliver website content and optimize campaigns with speed, ease and sophistication.
Some of the features include mobile content management, social media integration, testing and targeting, and real-time analytics. The product provides connectors for easily integration with other applications such as e-commerce, Sharepoint, CRM, email marketing, and others.
CrownPeak ships with the most powerful analytics available in any WCM product has integration with 19 different social networks, and native mobile site management capabilities. Every new feature is immediately available in the interface, keeping marketing way ahead of the curve at all times.
<blockquote>“We did not have the time or resources to pull a content management solution together internally so CrownPeak was the perfect solution for us. They solved the content management piece of the puzzle for us,” – Dave Beckwith, Senior Director of Skype Global Web Stores.</blockquote>
CrownPeak offers critical speed-to-market advantages. The development environment enables template rollout over 80% faster than traditional products and has deployment architecture optimized for speed, interoperability, and economics, enabling global organizations to deploy business-unit driven, regionally tailored sites worldwide in less than a calendar quarter.
<a href="http://www.crownpeak.com/resources/index.aspx?utm_source=cmscritic&amp;utm_medium=article&amp;utm_term=resources&amp;utm_content=intro_to_crownpeak&amp;utm_campaign=web">Click here to download additional videos, whitepapers and case studies or request a demo of CrownPeak’s SaaS Web Content Management and Cloud CMS.</a>

Latest SaaS WCM Products and Cloud CMS Features

<a href="http://www.crownpeak.com/?utm_source=cmscritic&amp;utm_medium=article&amp;utm_term=crownpeak&amp;utm_content=intro_to_crownpeak&amp;utm_campaign=web">CrownPeak</a>, the market leader in <a href="http://www.crownpeak.com/solutions/index.aspx?utm_source=cmscritic&amp;utm_medium=article&amp;utm_content=intro_to_crownpeak&amp;utm_campaign=web">cloud Web Content Management and Optimization</a>, offers a software-as-a-service solution built to empower marketers to develop and deliver website content and optimize campaigns with speed, ease, and sophistication.
The product has zero learning curve and integrates with other platforms seamlessly through its innovative architecture. The interface is simple and easy to use, with control of SEO and metadata, multi-media files, mobile content management, social media, and multilingual content and multinational sites.
<a href="http://www.crownpeak.com/products/web-content-optimization.aspx?utm_source=cmscritic&amp;utm_medium=article&amp;utm_term=optimization&amp;utm_content=intro_to_crownpeak&amp;utm_campaign=web">Optimization</a> is achieved through targeting, testing, analytics, and customer data management based on browser and device, user behavior, and even location data. Content creation is made easy through form and landing page creation and conversion data that empowers marketers to measure and adjust the effectiveness of their campaigns.
CrownPeak is based on configuration over development in a click-and-go interface with a workflow that enables deployment in weeks, not months. Integration with most applications such as e-commerce, email marketing, CRM, collaboration, ECM, social media/community, identity management, and analytics is done easily and efficiently because of its delivery architecture that enables global availability and scalability through the use of the cloud.
Thousands of websites including Nissan, Skype, CoreLogic, and Alico achieve web content success through CrownPeak’s versatile cloud CMS solution. CrownPeak was recently nominated Finalist at the 2011 American Business Awards for Best Product Development team.
<a href="http://www.crownpeak.com/resources/index.aspx?utm_source=cmscritic&amp;utm_medium=article&amp;utm_term=resources&amp;utm_content=intro_to_crownpeak&amp;utm_campaign=web">Click here to download additional videos, whitepapers, and case studies or request a demo of CrownPeak’s SaaS Web Content Management and Cloud CMS.</a>

Introduction to CrownPeak SaaS WCM and Cloud CMS

CrownPeak’s newly announced Cloud Content Management Platform will make Digital Asset Management (DAM) functions available as a service.
Since its launch in 2001, <a href="http://www.crownpeak.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">CrownPeak Technology</a> has provided a software-as-a-service open cloud platform for Enterprise Web Experience Management. CrownPeak is positioned as a <a href="http://www.crownpeak.com/Press/CrownPeak/20141023-CrownPeak-Named-a-Visionary-by-Gartner-for-Web-Content-Management.aspx" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">“Visionary” in 2014 Magic Quadrant for Web Content Management (WCM) by Gartner, Inc</a>.
With this new DAM solution, content editors can centrally manage the brand experience from a single place, with changes published to any webpage using the asset. Also, digital marketing teams can deliver a consistent experience through streaming and standardized brand compliance.
Let's take a closer look at what CrownPeak is now offering.
<h2>Streamlining Asset Curation &amp; Editing</h2>
CrownPeak Technology, the provider of the enterprise’s only open cloud platform for Web Experience Management, has released a new Digital Asset Management (DAM) offering, available now to its enterprise customers and digital agency partners. The company’s unique DAM service makes global management of digital media assets across all of an organization’s web properties quick and easy.
Digital marketers choose CrownPeak’s multi-tenant cloud content management platform to create rich, personalized web experiences for customers. As part of any brand’s global website management effort, CrownPeak DAM eliminates many of the extra steps normally required to manage, organize, edit, deploy and regulate digital media files. The service provides the following benefits to enterprise marketing and agency client website teams:
<ul>
<li>Asset Curation. Organize and categorize digital assets at will, then easily police where they are deployed, regardless of the source content’s location.</li>
<li>Standardized Editing. Normalize image editing functions across all global web properties, supporting collaboration and taming inefficient DAM workflows.</li>
<li>Increased Control. Unify brand identity, image quality, asset versioning, and compliance across the enterprise in one comprehensive cloud tool.</li>
</ul>
<h2>A Unified Cloud View of All Digital Assets</h2>
CrownPeak’s DAM solution is able to openly access and manipulate digital media assets stored in a variety of third-party marketing tools such as Dropbox, Google Drive, Sharepoint, Box, and Veeva.
This means that website development and management teams tasked with creating better online customer experiences on a global basis can more easily enforce a unified, consistent brand look and feel – no matter where their digital assets are stored.
CrownPeak's Chief Product Officer, Carl Sutter, made these comments upon the release of CrownPeak DAM:
<blockquote>“The prevalence of un-integrated and niche DAM products in the market left unaddressed a number of key challenges felt by digital marketers. CrownPeak DAM helps eliminate errors in what has traditionally been a very inefficient team workflow for asset management. Most DAM offerings don’t sync directly with the CMS. With our cloud content management platform, the more backend digital asset repositories that integrate via our open API or pre-built connectors, the more optimized a brand’s entire DAM effort can become.”</blockquote>
Meanwhile, Paul Juedes, senior director of enterprise digital marketing at CoreLogic, made these comments:
<blockquote>“Digital marketing teams work feverishly to feed each prospect’s ravenous appetite for digital content. A cloud content management platform with an integrated DAM is now a necessity. Solutions like CrownPeak DAM can streamline and simplify the way organizations manage their digital assets in a central, secure way. Moreover, a good DAM implementation is a strategic competitive advantage. It allows organizations to meet and exceed every customer’s expectations for a great content-driven experience with brand consistency.”</blockquote>
<h2>CrownPeak Digital Asset Management Features<a name="_GoBack"></a></h2>
Designed to empower web content authors and editors, CrownPeak DAM comprises the following features and functions:
Access
CrownPeak DAM tracks and organizes digital assets across the enterprise with native platform integration to best-of-breed data and content sources where digital assets may be stored. It manages the seamless flow of image files, audio, and video – independent of their location. CrownPeak is also compatible with third-party storage, enterprise content management and document management applications.
Organization
CrownPeak DAM allows users to filter and classify digital assets by tagging attributes such as file type and meta-data tags (e.g. “product photos”) or by creating named collections (e.g. “Fall campaign”). Assets can be browsed, searched, moved, and manipulated across the entire website portfolio from a single interface – eliminating asset redundancy. Collections allow web teams to provision special access in support of cross-team collaboration.
Editing
CrownPeak DAM provides a unified, intuitive set of tools for image editing across all websites, efficiently eliminating unnecessary image rework. The Image Optimizer feature creates pre-packaged, optimized images for mobile, tablet or web with a few clicks. Finalized images can then be quickly and consistently published across all global websites. Any saved changes roll out automatically on production sites that use the image as well as to its original location.
Previewing
CrownPeak DAM powers a rich media preview of still image thumbnails and full web pages with adjustable sizing.
Enforcement
CrownPeak DAM empowers brand owners to enforce compliance of digital assets with definitive or optimal quality standards, supported by layered security and rich team workflow built right into the CrownPeak platform. Collect and tag assets by expiration date or copyright, for example. CrownPeak can also integrate its capabilities with third-party digital rights management and governance monitoring tools.
Getting your hands on CrownPeak DAM will be easy, thanks to it being fully integrated with CrownPeak’s cloud content management platform and is available immediately with the click of a button.
CrownPeak DAM is an optional offering that CrownPeak activates for customers and comes packaged as part of the Advanced Platform edition, which exisiting customers will be glad to hear. The company will make pricing information available to interested parties.
To find out more about CrownPeak DAM, <a href="http://www.crownpeak.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">visit the CrownPeak website</a>.
Also, be sure to check out <a href="/products/crownpeak/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">CrownPeak via our CMS Directory</a>.

CrownPeak Unveils Digital Asset Management Solution

<a href="http://www.crownpeak.com">CrownPeak</a> has launched its highly anticipated new user interface (UI). The CrownPeak Cloud content management solution (CMS) is the first enterprise-grade CMS to offer a consumer-like interface that enables non-technical users to create and publish content to all digital channels resulting in the ability to run faster and more effective campaigns.
The complexity of multi-lingual marketing into many digital channels combined with regulated publishing environments has resulted in cumbersome workflow interfaces. The new CrownPeak UI removes these complexities and allows digital marketing content to be implemented quickly with a zero learning curve for new system users.
<blockquote>“Web content management plays a vital role in helping global 1000 enterprises achieve major business objectives including: managing the global brand, capturing new customers, launching new products and markets, and retaining customers,” stated Jim Howard, chief executive officer at CrownPeak. “The new CrownPeak user interface fundamentally changes what is expected of an enterprise WCM system. While WCM was once the domain of a select few – essentially an expert-only system – organizations can now expand their content contributor pool dramatically and enhance their online customer engagement as a result.”</blockquote>
The CrownPeak UI presents the entire content management dashboard workflow in one, easy-to-view, comprehensive screen. Content creators no longer need to toggle between multiple windows. They can seamlessly view, add, and share dynamic content, layouts, analytics, lead generation data, and web content optimization information in a single interface. The workflow is intuitively designed so communication with team members, recent file activity, tutorials, best practices tests, targets, and reports can be managed while a preview of the page being worked on remains in view.
IT departments can maintain control of the infrastructure while giving marketers the ability to serve visitors with the right content at the right time. The CrownPeak solution offers pre-integrated frameworks, the ability to deliver Cloud WCM globally without replicating IT infrastructure, and a platform-agnostic solution to import, export and publish data through standard protocols and formats.
“Great user interface design is based on an intuitive application which is not usually found in the enterprise,” continued Howard. “Simplifying common tasks like finding, modifying, and moving content through workflow, but still enabling the power to perform advanced tasks like adjusting workflow or targeting content to specific user segments, all in the same interface, was the requirement. Every CrownPeak customer will have access to a UI that achieves this objective. Furthermore, CrownPeak manages the system upgrade which enables every customer to toggle back and forth between the new and old interface on the day we hit general release. That’s the beauty of SaaS – we ensure that customers constantly receive the newest and most innovative technology.”
In addition to unveiling the new user interface during Gilbane Boston, executives from ACE Group and Progress Software will share product case studies demonstrating the effectiveness of the CrownPeak Cloud SaaS CMS approach. CrownPeak is also participating on a customer and engagement panel discussing how to reach a global audience.
More information about the benefits of a Cloud CMS System can be found in CrownPeak's Resources Library. Enterprises interested in learning more about the new CrownPeak user interface can contact CrownPeak at 800-887-1977 in the US; +44-203-384-6598 in Europe to request a demo or click here for additional contact details.

CrownPeak launches new user interface that dramatically simplifies Web Content Management for global enterprises

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