News
The Gist
- Strategic acquisition. Umbraco enhances its digital capabilities and expands its UK presence through the acquisition of Outfield Digital.
- Promising projects. Vendr and Konstrukt, two innovative projects from Outfield Digital, will join Umbraco's product offerings.
- Expanding offerings. With Vendr and Konstrukt integration, Umbraco positions itself to better compete in the DXP middle market.
Umbraco, a provider of open-source content management systems, has announced the acquisition of Outfield Digital, a UK-based digital agency. According to company officials, the acquisition is aimed at strengthening Umbraco's digital capabilities and expanding its presence in the UK market.
But it also positions Umbraco for a takeover of the Digital Experience Platform's (DXP’s) middle market. According to the vendors analyzed in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Digital Experience Platforms published March 13, that market would include competitors such as Kentico, Magnolia, Optimizely, Progress and Squiz.
As part of the deal, Umbraco will acquire two of Outfield Digital’s most promising projects: Vendr, a SaaS commerce solution, and Konstrukt, the backoffice UI builder.
“We believe that in order for Umbraco to stay relevant we need to look beyond just content,” Kim Sneum Madsen, CEO at Umbraco, said in a statement. “We want to be able to offer a powerful commerce offering that is well-integrated with Umbraco and that can be added to Umbraco projects where needed. And we believe Vendr to be just that.”
DXP Mid-Market Space 'Open and Competitive'
The acquisition strategy is certainly not out of left field. Heavy DXP hitters like Adobe, Acquia and Sitecore have been acquiring parts for the better part of the last two decades. And, according to CMSWire's DXP Market Guide, "the best DXP systems are ones that can serve as a foundational platform, allowing organizations to use that foundation and extend it by integrating with other internal and external systems" — and the proportion of respondents buying a new platform has increased.
Umbraco is designed to be part of a DXP, integrating easily with other platforms, scaling up or down based on business needs and requirements, rather than overdelivering features, according to Alex Meyers, an engineering manager at Carbon Six Digital, an Umbraco Gold Partner.
"The acquisition of Outfield Digital is a progressive step that Umbraco is taking in terms of DXP, bringing with it Vendr, an ecommerce platform that will improve Umbraco’s DXP strategy," he added.
Further, Meyers added, Umbraco is well suited for the mid-market space. “The mid-market DXP space is becoming more open and competitive given that the bigger players are moving into the enterprise section of the market," he said. "Mid-market leaders are looking for cost-effective and user-friendly solutions that don’t come with complex overheads."
Related Article: What's Your Definition of a Digital Experience Platform?
Umbraco Plans to Integrate Vendr, Konstrukt in 2023
Umbraco will also gain members of Outfield’s digital team, including Matt and Lucy Brailsford, the couple who built both Vendr and Konstrukt. As part of Umbarco’s “Community Happiness Team,” both were onboarded to continue maintaining and developing the projects.
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Vendr is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that aims to help businesses manage and optimize their subscription spend. Features include automated renewals, contract management, spend analytics and vendor consolidation. The platform allows businesses to centralize all of their subscription purchases and manage them in one place, to streamline procurement process and reduce costs. Konstrukt is a project management tool designed to help teams collaborate and streamline their workflow. It offers a range of features, including task management, time tracking, file sharing and communication tools.
Company officials said clients of Vendr and Konstrukt will continue on “existing terms and prices until the end of 2023” while the company works on integrating both into its commercial offerings as Umbraco products sometime later in 2023.
In August 2021, Umbraco was acquired by Monterro, a software growth investor, something Madsen called a “perfect match.”
“With extensive CMS experience and a true belief in open-source software, Monterro is a perfect match as we strive to meet increasing demand for best-of-breed DXP solutions that make complex technologies easy to use,” Madsen said. “With Monterro’s valuable guidance and capital, 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.”
The acquisition of Outfield Digital reflects Umbraco's intention to support partners and clients to build better digital experiences, according to Javier A. Miranda, COO at Umbraco.
"Their products are a great match for our current technology," he said, "and we are hoping to develop them forward in the future. This is fully aligned with our idea to keep exploring better ways to improve our services, both doing meaningful acquisitions and integrating tech partners under our DXP strategy. We believe there is great demand for these actions under the current CMS landscape.”
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