What future for the Magento E-commerce platform?
If there is a news that has been making a lot of talk since the beginning of the week in the Web world, it is the acquisition of the Magento E-commerce platform by the giant Adobe! Yes, you read that right. On May 21, Adobe announced the acquisition of Magento for a sum of 1.68 billion dollars to increase the diversification of its products.
Adobe + Magento
If you didn’t know, Magento is a leading free E-commerce platform for B2C and B2B businesses. With a strong community of over 300,000 developers and renowned customers like Canon, Helly Hansen, Paul Smith and Rosetta Stone, its reputation is well established.
Adobe, on the other hand, leads the industry in creative, marketing and management tools with its Adobe Experience Cloud suite. The timing couldn’t be better: the strength of ecommerce and digital experience meet!
What do we think?
We are very excited about Magento being part of the Adobe Experience Cloud suite. We asked our colleague Simon Robillard, strategist and account manager, to find out what he thought.
– It is often said that there is strength in numbers. Do you think that together, Adobe and Magento can take e-commerce to the next level?
Yes, I do! They were already partners since the fall of 2016, but for sure, a merger between the two can push E-commerce even further.
First, if we talk about Magento, it’s a platform that offers both power and robustness, but also a wide range of features. It is important to know that it was built on fundamental principles such as flexibility, modularity and a competitive cost of implementation and maintenance. The fact that it is open source and has a large community makes it the platform of choice for B2B and B2C online stores. For its part, Adobe offers a complete digital experience thanks to its array of products and integrated solutions such as the Creative Cloud (content creation and design) and the Adobe Experience Cloud, which brings together solutions in digital marketing, advertising and data analysis.
The addition of the Magento platform to the Adobe Experience Cloud completes the suite. By combining their respective strengths, we can expect a powerful suite of products for retailers and an incredible customer experience. I’m not worried about the future of Magento!
– In your opinion, is it a good thing to integrate the Magento platform with the Adobe Experience Cloud suite? If so, why?
I believe that centralizing everything in a single application (Adobe Experience Cloud) will allow us to meet the specific needs of all companies, both B2B and B2C. Marketing is critical to the success of a project. Creating a synergy between e-commerce and marketing is therefore a great way to empower retailers and users and simplify processes. Let’s not forget that Magento has a strong community and that a good part of the platform’s code is made by partners. This is what makes it strong and what makes it stand out from the competition. However, as the existing ecosystem will be preserved, we can only expect an even larger and more diversified network.
We at O2 Web are very excited about this news. First of all, because we do creative e-commerce for both B2B and B2C companies (and even B2B2C!), but also because it will allow us to have access to a wider range of tools in one place to put forward our clients and help them exceed their goals. Adobe’s products and solutions are already part of our designers’ and developers’ daily lives, so it’s definitely a great advantage for us and our clients!
One small caveat, however, is that Adobe will have to align the types of packages or prices they offer with this new addition. So there will probably be some changes to be expected in this regard. But I’m sure the cost will be worth it!
– What are your predictions or how do you see the future of Magento with this merger?
My guess is that they will perhaps implement a “lighter” version to reach retailers who own a small or medium-sized business and who would currently use Shopify. Besides, I have a feeling that it might be Shopify’s turn to go into the hands of a cloud giant in the next few years. Who knows!
Let’s not forget that in recent weeks, Google got its hands on Cask Data and its Big Data platform, while Oracle bought DataSience.com and its data science tool platform. Also, in 2016, Salesforce had proceeded to buy Demandware CMS for $2.8 billion.
Finally, it is worth noting that it is during the third quarter of 2018 that the changes will be made, when the transaction is finalized. Until then, we remain very impatient to know the rest!
