Articles

OpenText Article

As the U.S. heads into the Fourth of July holiday weekend, we've got some fireworks on display across the digital experience stack. 
Let's light things up with some of the biggest news we've been following this month.
 
<h2>Constant Contact to acquire SharpSpring</h2>
<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/constant-contact-sharpspring-1.jpg" alt="Constant Contact and SharpSping logos " />
<a href="https://www.constantcontact.com/" target="_blank">Constant Contact</a>, the e-commerce focused marketing platform, announced it has signed a <a href="https://news.constantcontact.com/2021-06-22-Clearlake-Capital-and-Siris-Backed-Constant-Contact-Agrees-to-Acquire-SharpSpring" target="_blank">definitive agreement to acquire</a> SharpSpring. Backed by Clearlake Capital Group and Siris Capital, the all-cash transaction is valued at approximately $240 million.
<a href="https://sharpspring.com/" target="_blank">SharpSpring</a> is a cloud-based marketing automation platform that improves the effectiveness of marketing strategies for small businesses (SMBs). A preferred toolkit for digital agencies, SharpSpring helps generate leads, improve conversions to sales, and drive higher returns on marketing investments. 
Nearly a household name across the digital marketing community, Constant Contact is a legacy platform that provides a full suite of marketing tools catering mainly to small businesses, freelancers, and nonprofits. Constant Contact continues to be one of the most recognized services for managing email marketing campaigns but has more recently added <a href="https://www.constantcontact.com/website" target="_blank">website building features</a> and social media marketing capabilities. 
With the integration of SharpSpring, Constant Contact's users will be able to easily engage customers throughout their journey and deliver better marketing-driven results. SharpSpring also brings a layer of CRM capabilities to the mix, allowing Constant Contact to elevate and evolve the customer experience.
"Constant Contact and SharpSpring share a mission to help small businesses succeed, and this acquisition represents a powerful opportunity to combine our best-in-class email and e-commerce offerings with SharpSpring's strong suite of revenue growth and marketing automation tools," said Frank Vella, CEO at Constant Contact. "Today's Constant Contact retains the customer-first culture that defined our heritage, and I am excited to expand upon that with a commitment to innovation that will accelerate our growth and build upon the passion and agility that has made our brand a leader in digital marketing for so many years."
<h2>WP Engine launches Premier, its new enterprise WordPress platform</h2>
<img style="max-width:899px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/wpengine-premier.png" alt="WPEngine Premier" />
<a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/wp-engine-releases-worlds-first-study-of-the-wordpress-economy-cites-awe-inspiring-numbers/" target="_blank">WPEngine</a>, a digital experience platform for WordPress, has <a href="https://wpengine.com/blog/wp-engine-launches-premier-enterprise-wordpress-platform/" target="_blank">announced</a> the launch of Premier – a new enterprise platform that delivers improved security, performance, and scalability. 
An established <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/wp-engine-releases-worlds-first-study-of-the-wordpress-economy-cites-awe-inspiring-numbers/" target="_blank">leader in managed WordPress hosting and services</a>, WP Engine powers the top 200,000 websites by traffic, making it one of the most trusted brands on the market. Now, with the addition of Premier, the DXP will offer enterprise-grade security for WordPress – a sought-after requirement for many organizations concerned about the risks posed by WordPress. 
As part of their enterprise strategy, WP Engine completed a <a href="https://www.imperva.com/learn/data-security/soc-2-compliance/" target="_blank">SOC 2 Type II</a> examination to ensure that Premier met the highest standards of security and availability. It also features protection from unauthenticated file system access, managed web application firewall (WAF), DDoS mitigation, and encrypted global network routing.
For WP Engine customers, Premier is an island of stability in a sea of open source. The new platform boasts a 99.99% uptime SLA, a global network of data centers, managed CDN, <a href="https://wpengine.com/evercache/" target="_blank">WP Engine Evercache</a> (proprietary front-end caching), and automatic PHP and WordPress updates. This mix could have a dramatic influence on organizations as they consider modernizing and re-platforming on WordPress for enterprise applications. 
"Enterprises need more time focusing on their customers and growing their business, rather than worrying about the security and scale of the technology they use," said Lisa Box, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Enterprise for WP Engine.
To learn more about WP Engine's Premier Enterprise WordPress platform, visit the <a href="https://wpengine.com/enterprise/" target="_blank">Premier web page.</a>
<h2>Salesforce and AWS expand partnership with key integrations</h2>
<img style="max-width:770px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/aws-salesforce.jpg" alt="AWS Salesforce logos" />
<a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/reviews/salesforce-cms-review-evolving-a-crm-powerhouse-into-a-dxp-challenger/" target="_blank">Salesforce</a>, the world's leading CRM platform – and <a href="https://www.aws.com" target="_blank">AWS</a>, the industry's undisputed champion of the cloud – <a href="https://www.salesforce.com/news/press-releases/2021/06/23/salesforce-aws-partnership-expansion/" target="_blank">announced</a> a significant expansion to their global partnership. 
While the two tech giants have had an existing relationship for some time, they are now offering an enhanced set of capabilities that will make it easier for developers to build and launch custom applications in Salesforce that natively leverage AWS services. This tighter integration will also connect data and workflows securely across both ecosystems.
Custom coding has long been a requirement for integrating AWS and Salesforce, but this expanded offering will enable customers to use both platforms seamlessly through a set of unified capabilities. The companies have also collaborated on new low-code tools to help customers build innovative applications that connect data in real-time between Salesforce applications and AWS services. 
"For more than five years, our customers have benefitted from a tight relationship between AWS and Salesforce. Now, we are taking the partnership to the next level by integrating our offerings so developers using both AWS and Salesforce can build unified applications much faster and simpler than ever before," said <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/andy-jassy-amazons-new-ceo-signals-bold-future-for-loud-and-digital-experiences/" target="_blank">Andy Jassy</a>, CEO of Amazon Web Services. "With this partnership, we are significantly simplifying developers' lives and empowering them to develop applications however they want, from wherever they want globally, at any scale."
You can read all the details of the new capabilities in the <a href="https://www.salesforce.com/news/press-releases/2021/06/23/salesforce-aws-partnership-expansion/" target="_blank">Salesforce press release</a>.
<h2>Joomla 4 RC 1 and Joomla 3.10 Alpha 8 are here</h2>
<img style="max-width:870px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/joomla4-400-rc1.jpg" alt="Joomla 4" />
The Joomla! Project <a href="https://www.joomla.org/announcements/release-news/5839-joomla-4-rc-3-and-joomla-3-10-alpha-8-are-here.html" target="_blank">announced</a> the availability of the first <a href="https://joom.la/4rc3" target="_blank">Joomla! CMS 4.0 Release Candidate 3</a> and <a href="https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/releases/tag/3.10.0-alpha8" target="_blank">Joomla 3.10 Alpha 8</a>. These releases are aimed at extension and template developers so they can prepare their products for the stable release of Joomla! CMS 4.0. 
Here are a few of the standout features:
Joomla4Accessibility: Accessibility is a must with every modern digital experience, and Joomla! 4 delivers some marked improvements from the ground up. The platform aims for <a href="https://www.w3.org/" target="_blank">W3C Accessibility Guidelines</a> (WCAG) 2.0 with AA compliance – and the layout, contrast, and infrastructure all have accessibility built-in at a foundational level.
Joomla4Speed: Whether a website is focused on e-commerce or static content, speed is one of the top factors impacting conversions. With Joomla! 4, users can benefit from increased load time and performance, which can improve the overall customer experience. 
Joomla4Workflows: Combined with a number of improvements in the media manager, Joomla!'s new workflow and media manager are designed to streamline processes and help users work more efficiently with their content operations. 
Joomla4Emails: From a marketing automation perspective, Joomla! now lets you craft and deliver customized emails with its new templating system, allowing for greater control over branding and formatting.
Joomla4Search: With advanced filtering and indexing, Joomla! 4 boasts a boost to search with its enhanced capabilities.
<h2>OpenText and Hyland named "Leaders" in Content Platforms by Forrester</h2>
<img style="max-width:600px" src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2021/07/forrester-wave-content-platforms-2021.gif" alt="Forrester Wave Content Platforms 2021" />
It's hard to believe that it's already Q2 of 2021. Like clockwork, Forrester has issued its quarterly Wave Report for Content Platforms, and both <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/opentext-adds-new-content-services-to-power-modern-work-in-the-cloud/" target="_blank">OpenText</a> and <a href="https://www.hyland.com/" target="_blank">Hyland</a> are battling out the pole position with <a href="https://www.microsoft.com" target="_blank">Microsoft</a>. 
OpenText <a href="https://www.opentext.com/about/press-releases?id=D5A0D9EE2F914B948C0C0722E5F2B23B" target="_blank">announced</a> that its Extended ECM has been named a "Leader" in the <a href="https://www.opentext.com/info/ecm/forrester-wave" target="_blank">Q2 2021 Wave Report,</a> receiving the highest possible scores in the criteria of support for team or project workspaces, packaged applications, integration and interoperability, and lifecycle management.
OpenText's product strategy and focus on enterprise applications have been amplified by its multi-year cloud investment. In April, OpenText also launched its cloud-native SaaS offering, <a href="https://blogs.opentext.com/introducing-opentext-core-content/" target="_blank">Core Content</a>, built on its OT2 platform. All of this is shifting the dynamics in its favor, and Forrester is clearly taking notice – as they are only trailing Microsoft. 
Likewise, Hyland has also been <a href="https://www.hyland.com/en/learn/it-programs/forrester-wave-content-services-Q2-2021" target="_blank">named a "Leader"</a> in the report, buoyed by its cloud and innovation strategy and its vertical focus. If you recall, <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/hyland-enters-agreement-to-acquire-nuxeo/" target="_blank">Hyland purchased Nuxeo</a> in March of this year, giving the platform some extra juice with both enterprise content management (ECM) and digital asset management (DAM) capabilities. 
Hyland is clearly driving digital transformation with a modern and forward-thinking approach, leveraging a cloud-first vision and a variety of scalable cloud offerings – including the <a href="https://www.cmscritic.com/hyland-acquires-alfresco-focuses-on-cloud-and-global-expansion-of-enterprise-cms/" target="_blank">Alfresco Digital Business Platform.</a> Additionally, Hyland is gaining ground with its wide array of options, including open platform development, low-code toolkits, and repeatable, specialized industry and departmental solutions. 
<h2>Firecrackers, anyone?</h2>
We prefer bottle rockets, but that's just us. From the entire staff at CMS Critic, we wish you a safe and happy Independence Day.

CMS Monthly Recap: WP Engine Launches Enterprise WordPress Platform, Salesforce and AWS Expand Partnership, and More

paris-tuzun

Monthly Recap with fireworks in background

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

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

Explore a wide range of informative articles on OpenText, insights, and industry updates. Stay informed and ahead of the curve with our diverse collection of news and posts covering the latest trends and developments in the industry

News

CMS Monthly Recap: WP Engine Launches Enterprise WordPress Platform, Salesforce and AWS Expand Partnership, and More

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