Partnership News & Articles

Swedish Web CMS vendor EPiServer (news, site) is increasing its European reach beyond the Scandinavian home base. Recently, EPiServer signed 11 new implementation/reseller partnerships in the United Kingdom.

As we know, EPiServer works through resellers/partners only. And now, through more of them, including UK’s Byte Art, Charteris, Cimex Media, Corporate Document Services, IMGROUP, Kieon, Nucleus, Obergine, Ogilvy Action, The On Connection and STEEL. The majority of them are interactive/digital agencies specializing in website building and web content management.

Neal Perry, Country Manager of EPiServer UK & Ireland said: “Our partners include some of the largest and most well known agencies in Europe. They all know that we provide them with a straightforward way to create websites, which engage the visitor and are easy to manage.”

Good move, eh? For EPiServer’s growth, it is crucial to sign the right implementation partners, as much of the overall success in the CMS market depends on them. You might’ve noticed that it is not always easy to find skilled EPiServer integrators, especially outside of Sweden.

EPiServer says there are more than 2,500 customers worldwide using EPiServer CMS. A bit hard to believe, but the vendor also notes, “Two new commercial sites built using EPiServer CMS go live every 24 hours.”

The current count of EPiServer’s partner network is around 300 companies in 25 countries, including U.S., where EPiServer has recently opened its North American HQ office.

The world is not enough. Following the recent opening of its U.S. office, the open source ECM vendor Nuxeo (news, site) keeps expanding its global reach with a new partnership announced today.

Kisiwa, the content management solutions firm, signed an exclusive strategic and distribution agreement with Nuxeo to provide sales, professional services and support in Southern and Eastern Europe, Russia, Middle East and Africa.

Jahia (news, site), an enterprise CMS vendor, is boosting its U.S. presence by tying up with a technology consulting firm Quoin (site) to help distribute Jahia's free community edition and paid-for enterprise CMS suite.

With its open source CMS -- Hippo CMS 7.0 -- recently out of the door, Hippo (news, site) has found a partner in the U.S. to help implement the revamped product. CorraTech is an open source software services and consulting shop. The two will work together to deliver web content management solutions to mid-market and enterprise customers.

Growth is almost always falls in the same equation with demand. Hippo says they are experiencing an increase in the customer base in North America. Meaning it’s time to shake hands with some system integrators. Or, as Tjeerd Brenninkmeijer, CEO of Hippo, puts it: “This move will help us deliver to our growing customer base in North America, where we are witnessing strong demand.”

CorraTech, as a provider of professional services (PS) and support for companies looking to transition to open source software, also evaluates open source vendors for enterprise adoption readiness. As part of its CorraTech’s Open Source Center of Excellence (OSCOE) evaluation process, they measure system scalability, architecture flexibility, interoperability, usability, licensing and support capabilities, as well as the commitment to the open source community.

Some of CorraTech existing partnerships include the open source usual suspects like Alfresco, Drupal, Joomla! and others.

As we’ve seen many times before, one “growing pain” to be aware of is spreading your PS resources too thin. As in the case with other European Web CMS vendors that have entered the U.S. market at some point in the past, Hippo customers should keep in mind the implications of a “partner model.” While the future may be bright, stay in the present moment and think of a possibly limited pool of implementation resources in the initial stages of market entry.

Hippo CMS 7 is available for a free-of-charge download from www.onehippo.org. Also, check out our take on the new version.