Interview: FatWire CEO Discusses Web 2.0 Acquisition

By John Conroy | Published Oct 30, 2007

Understanding that a vendor has to do more than just label its WCM solution industry-leading, FatWire goes the acquisition route and adds the extensive Web 2.0 capabilities of the relativelly obscure Infostoria.

Deeper collaboration and workflow capabilities will bring tremendous benefits to FatWire's family of products, but what lead the way to Infostoria's door? I had the pleasure of speaking to FatWire CEO Yogesh Gupta about the deal, and he had no doubts that he and his team had picked the right company to acquire.

“Our customers have been telling us over and over again that they want more and better collaborative features.” says Gupta.

“There are many reasons why Infostoria is the right company. Infostoria produces enterprise scale products, off a service oriented architecture. Also, the fact that its products were built off a Java platform (as is Fatwire Content Server), will make the incubation period [for integration] easier. In the end it was a case of right technology, right people, right time, right price.”

Infostoria's products will immediately go on sale under the FatWire banner, while the new owners work out how best to integrate the software into their existing suite.

These products are Infostoria Workgroups, Zeegzaag Wikis, and Infostoria Platform. Together, they enable online collaboration, document management, peer-to-peer file sharing, enterprise search, and content delivery. In short, exactly the kind of core web 2.0 capabilities which should make a difference to FatWire Content Server and other FatWire products.

Meanwhile Infostoria founder Dmitri Tcherevik, a former VP at Computer Associates, joins FatWire as Chief Technology Officer.

FatWire is currently flying. The company has been featured on Deloitte's Technology Fast 50 companies for three years in a row, based on revenue growth of 356% between 2002 and 2006. Based in Mineola, NY, the company provides Web Content Management solutions to over 400 companies including ICM, Cisco, and the New York Times.

For a look at FatWire's offerings, head over to the website.