Adobe recently struck a 1.68-billion-dollar deal with Magento. Acquiring it fully in a deal slightly smaller than the Omniture one in 2009, to ensure that their consumers get offered a full circle of commercial experience, from beginning to the shipping.
But it is not just Adobe Systems Inc. that struck gold with this acquisition.
Magento itself made sure that this deal will help them meet the recent demands of services, from financial, entertainment and wholesale to insurance, that they have been facing from their ever-growing crowd of consumers.
Being a tech company, they seemed to be encountering trouble in trying to meet these wide ranges of demands from all the different kinds of industries. So, it did make sense for them to make a move that would help the enterprise grow in scale, and what better way to ensure that than a merger with Adobe, one of the biggest cloud companies out there, with massive resources and support of its own.
In early 2016, Magento came up with its cloud services aka the Magento Commerce Cloud.
This offered clients an entire range of spanking new features, including a delivery network for content. The client base started an exponential growth right after, many of whom opted for the entire suite that included dashboard reporting and analytics in the form of Magento’s Business Intelligence, which in turn is a product of the acquisition of RJ Metrics in 2016.
Together, these services sought to offer more comprehensive solutions to their consumers, only running into trouble when the varied demands could not be met with their own tech resources.
So, while many consumers might have been taken by surprise by this seemingly sudden acquisition, the deal really was a long time coming, especially since both companies had been discussing the merger for at least a couple of months before reaching a decision.
One of the largest software beasts in the market, Adobe’s decision to add Magento eCommerce to improve its already varied repertoire, thus, might really be the best decision for both companies.
This merger makes sure that Adobe can answer the demands for a full range of e-commerce tech that their clients like, Capgemini, Deloitte and MRM McCann, have been clamoring for a while now.
As Adobe can deal with the creative aspects of consumer needs centered around brands, Magento’s services can take the reins from the point of checkout.
Some market experts, though, have their doubts about this seemingly perfect deal. Till the point of the merger, Magento had their full concentration on the SMB clients. But Adobe’s target is almost completely different, with it usually focusing on the enterprise. And this is not the first time that Magento has ended up being acquired.
Founded in 2008, Magento got acquired as early as the year 2011 by eBay. But the deal struck was hardly a huge one then, with it being acquired at just around 180 million dollars.
Soon after, in 2015, Permira Funds gave eBay a 20 million dollar profit to help Magento go private again. And now that the company has sold for almost a staggering 170 billion bucks, Permira has secured itself five times the return. Hillhouse capital Group, a fellow investor, invested 250 million dollars in Magento too, so it should see enough profits soon.
But while the reasons and advantages of this merger have taken center-stage, speculations about the future of Magento, and what it means for the market, have started doing the rounds too.
Market experts seem to believe that it is about time that we can begin hoping for improved customer interfaces, something that Magento hasn’t quite been known for. Perhaps, a Magento 3 would be in order?
Experts also see upcoming battles amongst various platforms in an effort to take better advantage of the merger between Adobe and Magento. But if the past is anything to go by, that is not all that we can expect from this merger.
Adobe, with its brilliant record or making wise acquisition moves while merging their tech capabilities with their own, might offer a more wholesome experience in the form of integrated solutions for consumers down the road, something that the Experience Cloud has been attempting to do already.
What remains to be seen is if Adobe can still continue to cater to the vast community of loyal Magento developers while Magento itself tries to keep up with the innovations and advancements of the tech giant.
We can expect there to be a test period in the beginning where customers wait for the reviews to come in so they know that the kinks that develop in the first phases of the merger have been sorted out.
One can expect a growth in interest in Adobe due to the spanking new commerce side that Magento adds to it through the merger. But will they both dominate their respective markets using the resources of the other or will they make a move towards a more streamlined and singular focus? Perhaps only time will tell.
While the future of Magento-Adobe merger remains uncertain for time, the future of your e-commerce websites should not!
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