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Sitecore Partners with Microsoft to Launch Industry’s First AI Innovation Lab for Marketers 

matt-garrepy

Is Google adding the letters 'CRM' to its Alphabet soup? Ask HubSpot

<img title="joomla_logo" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/03/joomla-product-logo.jpg" style="max-width:150px" />Open Source Matters, Inc. (OSM), the not-for-profit organization that supports the Joomla! Project, today announced that Microsoft ® has signed the Joomla! Contributor Agreement (JCA), the project’s new general public license (GPL). As a result, Joomla! users will experience improved Internet Information Services (IIS) compatibility and support in Joomla! 1.5.16. In addition, key Microsoft code contributions will be included in the trunk of the upcoming Joomla! 1.6, allowing the system to benefit from increased speed and efficiency by leveraging the Windows® Cache Extension for PHP.
“Microsoft signing the JCA is big news for the Joomla! community. Not only is this the largest organization to ever contribute code and to agree to the terms of our contributor agreement, but this means Joomla! users will get improved performance and usability of Joomla! on Microsoft’s IIS,” said Ryan Ozimek, President of Open Source Matters. “We’ve always had a portion of our community that has been IIS-based, yet we haven’t been able to offer the ideal level of IIS support and integration. With the new agreement in place, Joomla! will not only offer tighter ties with IIS, but our community can better work with Microsoft to make improvements or address future engineering issues. We're very happy to have Microsoft as part of our GPL development community.”
Joomla! community members have been working closely with the Microsoft team and have integrated the Joomla! package with Web Platform Installer. In addition, by utilizing Microsoft test environments, the team has been optimizing Joomla! to run better on IIS. With the release of Joomla! 1.5.16, the community has solved some long-standing compatibility issues that will allow the system to be supported on the same level as Apache. Furthermore, Joomla! 1.6 will include code for Windows Cache integration, further improving speed and code efficiency.
For those interested in trying Windows Cache integration now, you can get more information on how to run it with Joomla! 1.5 at <a href="http://blogs.iis.net/donraman/archive/2010/03/05/performance-improvement-in-joomla-using-wincache-user-cache.aspx" target="_blank">http://blogs.iis.net/donraman/archive/2010/03/05/performance-improvement-in-joomla-using-wincache-user-cache.aspx</a>
About Open Source Matters, Inc. and the Joomla! Project 
Open Source Matters, Inc. (OSM) is a not-for-profit organization that helps to manage and support the Joomla! Project. Joomla! is the industry’s leading open source content management system (CMS). For more information visit <a href="http://www.opensourcematters.org/" target="_blank">www.OpenSourceMatters.org</a> or <a href="http://www.joomla.org/" target="_blank">www.joomla.org</a>.

Microsoft and Joomla! working together

mike-johnston

While COVID-19 continues to impact markets globally, the CMS world has been on a binge of buying, partnering, and releasing new features.
In case you’ve been distracted over the last few weeks by a chaotic news cycle and a U.S. presidential election, here’s a quick recap of what’s been happening in the content management and digital experience world.
<h3>Hyland Completes Acquisition of Alfresco</h3>
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/hyland-alfresco-acquisition.jpeg" srcset="/wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w600/2020/11/hyland-alfresco-acquisition.jpeg 600w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w1000/2020/11/hyland-alfresco-acquisition.jpeg 1000w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/2020/11/hyland-alfresco-acquisition.jpeg 1200w" /></figure>
Recently, <a href="https://www.hyland.com/">Hyland</a> the enterprise content management (ECM) provider <a href="/hyland-acquires-alfresco-focuses-on-cloud-and-global-expansion-of-enterprise-cms/">announced</a> that it had signed a definitive agreement to acquire <a href="https://www.alfresco.com/">Alfresco Software</a> – an open-source content services platform.
Last week, Hyland <a href="https://news.hyland.com/hyland-completes-acquisition-of-alfresco/">completed</a> the transaction, bringing the entire Alfresco business, including all technology and products, under the Hyland umbrella.
“At Hyland, the Alfresco platform will continue to grow and to serve customers’ evolving business needs,” said Bill Priemer, Hyland’s President and Chief Executive Office. “Alfresco customers can confidently continue to use and expand their Alfresco solutions, whether deployed on-premises or in the cloud.”
Future Alfresco versions will enable customers to seamlessly leverage other areas of the Hyland portfolio. These include the Hyland Experience Platform (HxP) — the recently launched, next-generation, cloud-based platform — and newly developed HxP components, such as <a href="https://www.hyland.com/en/platform/product-suite/HxC">Hyland Experience Capture</a>.
<h3>Episerver Completes Acquisition of Optimizely</h3>
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/episerver-optimizely.png" srcset="/wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w600/2020/11/episerver-optimizely.png 600w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w1000/2020/11/episerver-optimizely.png 1000w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/2020/11/episerver-optimizely.png 1280w" /></figure>
In a big move to evolve their personalization strategy, <a href="https://www.episerver.com/">Episerver</a>, the customer-centric digital experience platform, recently <a href="/episerver-to-acquire-optimizely-the-worlds-leading-experience-optimization-platform/">announced</a> its plans to buy <a href="https://www.optimizely.com/">Optimizely</a> – a leading A/B and multivariate testing platform. A few weeks ago, Episerver <a href="https://www.episerver.com/company/press-room/episerver-completes-acquisition-of-optimizely">completed</a> the acquisition.
“With its acquisition of Optimizely, as with its acquisitions of Idio and Insite in 2019, Episerver substantially increases the value proposition that the company offers to enterprise brands,” said Jacob Groshek, research manager, Digital Experience Management, at IDC. “The Optimizely acquisition adds AI-based experimentation and optimization to the Episerver portfolio. The purchase of Optimizely not only augments Episerver's capacity to automatically deliver personalized content as a central component of users' digital experiences, it also adds another layer of behavioral intelligence for organizations.”
Following the close, Episerver now serves approximately 9,000 customers and more than 900 partners globally in segments including retail, manufacturing &amp; distribution, financial services, insurance, healthcare, media, and technology, among others.
As part of Episerver, the Optimizely progressive delivery and experimentation platform will continue to support customers as a standalone solution, but will also be available as part of Episerver’s offerings immediately.
<h3>Acquia Announces Major Updates to Open Digital Experience Platform (DXP)</h3>
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/drupal_9_dxp_0-1.jpg" srcset="/wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w600/2020/11/drupal_9_dxp_0-1.jpg 600w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w1000/2020/11/drupal_9_dxp_0-1.jpg 1000w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w1600/2020/11/drupal_9_dxp_0-1.jpg 1600w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/2020/11/drupal_9_dxp_0-1.jpg 1920w" /></figure>
After <a href="/acquia-launches-new-open-digital-experience-platform/">launching</a> its new Acquia Open Digital Experience Platform (DXP) this July, <a href="https://www.acquia.com/">Acquia</a> has accelerated their innovation by leaps and bounds. In fact, they recently <a href="https://www.acquia.com/about-us/newsroom/press-releases/acquia-announces-major-updates-open-digital-experience-platform">announced</a> major upgrades to their Drupal Cloud and Marketing Cloud.
So, what are these major upgrades? For starters, on the Drupal Cloud side, they <a href="https://www.acquia.com/drupal9">transitioned from Drupal 7 to Drupal 9</a>. For developers, these enhancements focus on decreasing the time to build, design, and run sites and applications.
Following the successful launch of Drupal 9 in June, the new <a href="https://www.acquia.com/drupal9/accelerate-your-migration">Acquia Migration Accelerator</a> tool significantly reduces the effort tied to a transition from Drupal 7 to Drupal 9. Currently in beta, the tool reduces time to value for Drupal 9 by providing a user-friendly interface to streamline analysis and planning, DevOps, data imports, and content auditing for migrations.
Once organizations are migrated, the new <a href="https://www.acquia.com/products/drupal-cloud/cloud-ide">Acquia Cloud IDE</a> makes it faster than ever to build Drupal sites and applications, with one-click access to a cloud-hosted development and testing environment. Acquia Cloud IDE integrates with existing Acquia command line and automated build tools for Drupal, making it faster and easier for developers to build and test their code – even in remote or hybrid work setups.
On the Marketing Cloud side, the major updates include new real-time 360-degree profiles, identity resolution, and unified segment capabilities within the Acquia Customer Data Platform (CDP). These capabilities aggregate data from various sources, eliminate redundancy, and unify data into a single source of the truth for real-time customer segmentation.
Finally, Acquia also added a COVID-19 dashboard that helps marketers understand their customers’ shifts from offline to online channels, as well as changes in channel preferences throughout the pandemic. The dashboard also helps marketers identify changes in product preferences, as well as opportunities for growth in their marketing campaigns.
<h3>Fabric Launches Headless Commerce Platform with $9.5 Million in Seed Funding</h3>
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/fabric-logo.png" srcset="/wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w600/2020/11/fabric-logo.png 600w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/2020/11/fabric-logo.png 855w" /></figure>
<a href="https://fabric.inc/">Fabric</a>, a headless commerce platform, launched its cloud-native experience and commerce product suite and <a href="https://resources.fabric.inc/blog/seed">announced</a> $9.5 million in seed funding led by Redpoint Ventures with participation from Sierra Ventures and Expa. In addition, e-commerce executive Faisal Masud, who led multi-billion-dollar commerce businesses at Amazon, eBay, Groupon and Staples, has joined the company as CEO.
Brands struggle to compete with Amazon’s continued market dominance in the e-commerce and digital retail space. While big retailers can afford to invest heavily in their own proprietary systems, widening their advantage in data, speed, pricing and convenience, many D2C and B2B brands are challenged by the cost and complexity of modernizing their outdated commerce platforms. COVID-19 has further raised the stakes: during the pandemic, e-commerce sales have grown as much as 55% year-over-year.
“Unlike Amazon, which wins on selection, price and availability, emerging and growing D2C and B2B companies need to win on brand and experience,” said Faisal Masud, CEO at Fabric.
Fabric’s headless commerce platform enables marketers and merchants to deliver world-class commerce experiences without the engineering burden. Its modular API-first platform enables brands to utilize tools that address their specific needs, rather than re-platforming. Fabric gives brands sophisticated capabilities with its Experience Platform Manager (XPM), Product Information Manager (PIM), pricing and offers and Order Management (OMS).
The Fabric platform offers a suite of commerce APIs that allow brands to orchestrate their offerings across all channels, enabling them to support the entire lifecycle of each customer. In addition, Fabric runs on a completely serverless infrastructure to effectively scale during high-traffic retail peaks.
<h3>Cloudinary and Contentful Partner to Help Brands Create “Visual-First” Experiences More Efficiently</h3>
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/apps-cloudinary-dialog.png" srcset="/wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w600/2020/11/apps-cloudinary-dialog.png 600w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w1000/2020/11/apps-cloudinary-dialog.png 1000w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/2020/11/apps-cloudinary-dialog.png 1340w" /></figure>
<a href="https://cloudinary.com/">Cloudinary</a>, the media experience platform, announced a partnership with <a href="https://www.contentful.com/">Contentful</a>, a headless content management system (CMS). The new partnership offers Contentful users seamless access to Cloudinary’s award-winning media experience solutions, including its headless digital asset management (DAM) within Contentful’s CMS – allowing Contentful users to more easily upload, optimize and deliver engaging visual-first experiences at scale.
"In today's visual economy, fast and flawless rich media experiences are no longer a nice to have, they are critical components to any company’s success,” said Scott Doughman, vice president of Business Development at Cloudinary. “Equally critical is the ability to deliver the right, high-performant content as efficiently as possible to eliminate the challenges that often keep experiences from reaching their true engagement potential. The Contentful-Cloudinary integration eliminates these challenges and we’re pleased to be bringing our media management expertise to the Contentful ecosystem."
With the API-first approach of Cloudinary and Contentful, you can now build a seamlessly-integrated, future-proof stack with your preferred development frameworks and platforms.
<h3>Microsoft Announces Clarity, a Free Visitor Behavior Analytics Platform</h3>
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/microsoft-clarity-heatmaps.png" srcset="/wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w600/2020/11/microsoft-clarity-heatmaps.png 600w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/2020/11/microsoft-clarity-heatmaps.png 626w" /></figure>
The elder statesman of the digital realm, <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/">Microsoft</a> continues to shock and awe the experience and development fiefdoms with bold moves – including their acquisitions of both <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/">LinkedIn</a> and <a href="https://github.com/">GitHub</a>.
Now, Microsoft has announced a resource that will have an impact on digital experience in the usability, governance, and analytics categories. With <a href="https://clarity.microsoft.com/">Microsoft Clarity</a>, website and content owners will now have access to a GDPR compliant, free-to-use analytics tool to help improve their website experiences by better understanding their visitors' behaviors.
Microsoft Clarity has three main features: heatmaps, session playbacks, and an insights dashboard. Because of their unique delivery, Clarity’s tools won’t negatively impact a website's latency, and can handle variable traffic without incurring additional costs.
Clarity’s heatmaps come in two forms: clickmaps and scrollmaps. The combination will allow users to qualify behavior and trends, and make it easy to provide data-driven justifications for design decisions. The session playbacks allow site managers to record page visits and track where visitors clicked and scrolled, and the insights dashboard provides an overall understanding of the traffic to your site.
<h3>Contentsquare Acquires Dareboost And Launches Find &amp; Fix Product to Solve Revenue-Killing Errors</h3>
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/contentsquare-dareboost.png" srcset="/wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w600/2020/11/contentsquare-dareboost.png 600w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w1000/2020/11/contentsquare-dareboost.png 1000w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w1600/2020/11/contentsquare-dareboost.png 1600w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/2020/11/contentsquare-dareboost.png 1755w" /></figure>
<a href="https://contentsquare.com/">Contentsquare</a>, the Digital Experience Analytics (DXP Analytics) company, <a href="https://contentsquare.com/blog/contentsquare-acquires-dareboost-and-launches-find-fix-product-to-solve-revenue-killing-errors/">announced</a> its acquisition of <a href="https://www.dareboost.com/en">Dareboost</a>, an online tool to test, analyze and monitor websites. Dareboost has been a Find &amp; Fix product for Contentsquare. The integration breaks silos between marketing and IT teams, as well as the rest of a business.
The core capabilities of the new Contentsquare Find &amp; Fix product include web performance monitoring and scoring, error reporting and impact quantification, advanced retroactive search, advanced APM integrations, and comparison and benchmarking capabilities.
<h3>Mediafly Acquires Presentify to Transform Marketing and Sales Content</h3>
<figure class="kg-card kg-image-card"><img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/sap_mediafly_cloud_diagram.png" srcset="/wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w600/2020/11/SAP_Mediafly_Cloud_Diagram.png 600w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/size/w1000/2020/11/SAP_Mediafly_Cloud_Diagram.png 1000w, /wp-content/themes/cmscritic/img/cmscritic/content/images/2020/11/SAP_Mediafly_Cloud_Diagram.png 1280w" /></figure>
<a href="https://www.mediafly.com/">Mediafly</a> – a provider of sales enablement technology, content management, and advisory services that create interactive, value-based selling experiences – <a href="https://www.mediafly.com/mediafly-acquires-presentify/">announced</a> its acquisition of <a href="https://www.presentify.co.uk/">Presentify</a>, a global visual communication solution.
By adding Presentify’s capabilities, Mediafly users can now build “selling stories” using sophisticated visual communication capabilities all through the Mediafly app – which natively supports the most advanced content formats, animations and modularized assets for elevated sales storytelling.
“More companies are recognizing the need for digital sales transformation, and the importance of using a modern sales enablement platform. But all too often they don’t want to take their antiquated, boring sales content and put it into a sophisticated sales app for fear of garbage in, garbage out,” said Carson Conant, CEO and founder of Mediafly. “With Presentify, Mediafly now tears down the barrier of entry for these companies, allowing them to quickly refresh their sales stories with interactive, animated content — and learn the ‘Presentification’ techniques to create and maintain sales collateral that is a league above their competition.”
And that’s a wrap. Stay tuned for another installment next month.

CMS Monthly Recap: Acquia Gets Feature Boosts, Cloudinary and Contentful Partner, Big Acquisition Updates and More

paris-tuzun

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

cms-critic-staff

Image of Contentstack logo with headshot of Nishant Patel, CTO

Scandinavia has long been regarded as a cradle of CMS innovation. And while that cradle has been rocked by the rise of Western competitors, the Nordic legion of web content management systems still holds a strong position in the minds – and hearts – of their users.
Heart. That might be one of the most tangible differentiators for <a href="https://umbraco.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Umbraco</a>, a Danish platform that was originally coined “The Friendly CMS” <a href="https://umbraco.com/about-us/values/why-the-friendly-cms/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">by one of its community members</a> back in 2006.
As this now-legendary designer was credited with observing: Everything about Umbraco is friendly. The UX, the community, and the pricing.
Turns out this tagline has stood the test of time – just like Umbraco itself.
In a global marketplace where CMS providers are struggling to establish or re-establish their identity (be it headless, DXP, or some bolt-on Frankenstein of neo-monolithic proportions), Umbraco is staying true to its core. It’s doubling down on its community, making complex technologies easier to use, and reminding us that open source is really about people – not just platforms.
For all these reasons (and presumably more), <a href="https://www.monterro.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Monterro</a> – the Swedish software growth investor that prides itself on turning Nordic software companies into global players – <a href="https://umbraco.com/blog/swedish-software-growth-investor-monterro-acquires-a-majority-stake-in-umbraco/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">has just purchased a majority stake in the Danish vendor</a>.
We had a chance to discuss this news with Umbraco’s CEO and self-proclaimed “Chief Friend Maker,” <a href="https://twitter.com/kimsneummadsen?lang=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kim Sneum Madsen</a>, who has been with the outfit since 2016. While acclaimed founder Niels Hartvig will be parting company, Madsen will continue to man the reigns as Monterro’s operational and financial backing comes online.
In our exclusive interview, we discussed where the company has been, what’s ahead – and how open source is “not a hippie thing anymore.”
<h2>Expanding best-of-breed digital experiences</h2>
Umbraco has come a long way since its founding in 2005, and like the rest of the market, the company has adapted to significant change. But according to Madsen, what hasn’t changed is their persistent focus on making things simpler.
While describing Umbraco’s history, Madsen said there have been three key elements to their success: software, community, and company. The first decade of their growth was focused on making great software and aligning with Hartvig’s vision of open source. The second was focused on nurturing an active community that loved their product – and built on it in a big way. At last count, Umbraco boasts over 220,000 developers and users worldwide, which is an astounding amount of adoption by any measure.
With the software and community pieces firing on all cylinders, the company is now focused on the company, which is where Madsen comes in. While his mission over the last five years has revolved around “customer happiness,” his job as CEO will require a balancing of the elements to achieve scale in a competitive, mature, and increasingly commoditized market.
“We believe we’re in a very strong position with the balance of the elements,” said Madsen, speaking of the software, community, and company components. “We’ve reinvented the way our community works, we have a mature model for engaging community teams around the globe, and we can give them something to build on.”
To reach the next level, Umbraco has invested in expanding its product set. Along with its flagship open-source Umbraco CMS, they now feature <a href="https://umbraco.com/products/umbraco-heartcore/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Umbraco Heartcore</a>, a headless offering; <a href="https://umbraco.com/products/umbraco-cloud/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Umbraco Cloud</a>, a fully-hosted ecosystem that boasts simplicity as one of its core attributes; and <a href="https://umbraco.com/products/umbraco-uno/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Umbraco Uno</a>, a one-stop platform for non-technical marketers and creative agencies.
Along with its vast community of members, including a large partner network that offers customized solutions that integrate with Umbraco, the company now counts more than 700,000 websites worldwide – the majority in Europe and the U.S. – running live on its solutions. Along the way, the company has scored some impressive customers, including JP Morgan, Rubbermaid, Scholl, the NFL, and other market leaders.
<h2>Monterro brings extensive CMS experience to Umbraco </h2>
On the Monterro side of the ledger, the stars couldn’t be more aligned – and Madsen is thrilled with the outcome. He said the private equity partner stood out because of their financial structure, but also because members of their operational staff served in key roles at other CMS platforms, including Episerver.
“With extensive CMS experience and a true belief in open-source software, Monterro is a perfect match as we strive to meet the increasing demand for best-of-breed DXP solutions that make complex technologies easy to use,” Madsen said.
As part of its mission to turn Nordic software companies into global market leaders, Monterro has completed 17 investments and 17 add-on investments since 2012. These include operational experience from successfully developing and running companies such as Pointsec, Orc Software, and CMS vendor Episerver, now <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/episerver-rebrands-as-optimizely-following-acquisition/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Optimizely</a>.
“With Monterro’s valuable guidance and capital,” Madsen remarked, “we will continue to work closely with our active open-source community to bring the Umbraco family of user-friendly, flexible, and robust CMS platforms to an even greater portfolio of companies in even more countries.”
While the structure of Umbraco’s ownership has changed, Madsen affirmed that the company’s direction will remain the same. “Our ambition is to use this position and invest money back into the continued growth of all the elements that constitute Umbraco," he said. "We will continue to focus on creating world-class software that produces outstanding value for users and customers.”
<h2>Market consolidation and confronting the data challenge</h2>
One area we discussed was the breakneck consolidation echoing across the CMS market and the drive to shore up the data layer – <a href="https://www.gartner.com/reviews/market/digital-experience-platforms" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a key requirement for Gartner</a> in their assessment of modern digital experience platforms.
Earlier this year, we saw several DXP players purchase customer data platforms (CDPs) to address the “missing data link” in their vision of completeness. This includes <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/optimizely-acquires-customer-data-platform-zaius/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Optimizely’s purchase of Zaius</a> this past March.
Madsen said that data is important, and while Umbraco would love to claim itself as the “single source” for data, what’s important is the aggregation of all relevant data – particularly as it relates to GDPR and other compliance requirements. He said customers must be in control, and with CMS as the backbone of a digital business, this should be made simpler in the process.
<h2>The growth of Enterprise and the role of Microsoft</h2>
“As Umbraco has matured over the last five years, we’re seeing increased demand from Enterprise customers,” said Madsen. At the same time, he said they’re seeing more customers wanting to move campaign sites closer to marketers – which is where Umbraco Uno comes in. As an out-of-the-box solution, it’s providing shorter delivery times for a wider range of clients, from enterprise to full-service digital agencies to design shops.
We also discussed the legacy role of <a href="https://dotnet.microsoft.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Microsoft</a> and their history of .NET – which Madsen said continues to be a differentiator given Microsoft’s footprint in key geographies.
<h2>The rise of headless CMS</h2>
In our discussion of Umbraco Heartcore – their headless offering – Madsen reflected that it’s still very new as a stand-alone product. Like other traditional CMS platforms, their API nature has enabled connections and integrations before headless exploded in demand. He maintains that users want the freedom to build and connect as they see fit.
While the jury may be out on whether headless is a lasting trend, Madsen supports the need for agencies to have greater freedom over the frontend and focus on omnichannel. However, he underscored the need for the CMS to be structured around the workflow for users, so it remains easy for editors to do their job.
“We’ve always been focused on the content editor,” he punctuated. “It has to be easy, or they won’t bother.”
<h2>Mining growth from a strong open source community</h2>
What’s abundantly clear is that Umbraco’s fiercely loyal community has been a keystone to their success. Madsen knows this well given his history and proximity to partners during his tenure at Umbraco.
“Users and partners are intertwined, as developers often work for an agency,” he said. “Every developer working on Umbraco makes a living on our software.” This underscores the value of their open source community to their future growth.
Focusing on partners has had an intrinsic “one to many” effect on multiplying Umbraco’s business. Madsen describes their community as the implementers, which has allowed Umbraco to focus on perfecting their software.
We asked Madsen if there’s one thing he would want the market to know about Umbraco, and he again came back to the value of being open source – and the contributions of their community.
“Open source is not a hippie thing anymore,” he noted. “It has a far better development cycle. Developers can raise an issue and get an answer quickly from other developers. It is the true ‘outside in’ approach, not us inventing in a lab and taking something to market. This is all based on real-life experiences that our developers have.”
That sounds like a friendly CMS experience to us – and a true differentiator for an investor like Monterro.
Peace, love, and integration.
<h2>About Umbraco</h2>
Danish Umbraco was founded in 2005 with the vision of making the complex simpler. The company offers a user-friendly best-of-breed platform for content management (CMS) based on open-source technology. With more than 700,000 installations, Umbraco is one of the most deployed Web Content Management Systems on the Microsoft stack. Its success lies in the open-source model, a unique community of more than 220,000 developers and users, and a well-established partner network of digital agencies. Umbraco has 100 employees and is headquartered in Odense, Denmark, with a branch office in Charlotte, North Carolina. For more information, visit <a href="https://umbraco.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">www.umbraco.com</a>

Umbraco CMS Acquired by Software Investor Monterro: Interview with CEO Kim Sneum Madsen

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