What Widen brings to the only Enterprise-grade Open DXP

Last week Acquia announced the acquisition of Widen, a popular leading cloud-native maker of digital asset management (DAM) and product information management (PIM) software. We wanted to dig deeper into what this really means for those already leveraging Acquia and Drupal and those evaluating the platform for a future migration.

First, you can check out Acquia’s official post to learn more about their strategy, which this Dries quote sums up very well:

However, we think there is more to the story.
This new partnership is beneficial for Acquia customers for three major reasons:

Acquia now has complete control over the DAM solution 
Before acquiring Widen, Acquia sold a DAM, but it was an OEM (white-labeled product), which they resold from an existing DAM provider. 

Now, with Widen under Acquia, there is no need to resell from a third party. This gives Acquia more opportunities (with common customers), more control (over the product roadmap), and more alignment (over DXP strategy). With complete control over the DAM roadmap, a more streamlined approach to integration and support can give customers exactly what they want and need to execute faster and more effectively. 

If only measured as an improvement over their current (former) DAM offering, this acquisition is a win for Acquia and their customers.

Bigger disrupter in eCommerce
As digital commerce is exploding and disrupting businesses, the fact that Widen also comes with a PIM (product information management) makes the Acquia platform even more compelling for organizations that leverage content and commerce. The Acquia Open DXP is now more compelling and relevant to a new class of customer need.

This is also a further sign that Acquia is taking the composable enterprise seriously, but layering in another (optional, open) use case that customers can leverage for engaging with customers at every step in their digital journey. 

A strategic advantage for organizations 
The ownership of DAM will push Acquia and Drupal deeper into an organization beyond content management. This will put them into play in terms of all the media an organization might use in a multi-channel manner, such as short-form (Twitter), video (TokTok, LinkedIn), email, personalization, and a variety of other channels. 

CMS is still Acquia’s shining glory, but this purchase has given Acquia the strategic grounds to become an even more valuable, robust asset for organizations, allowing businesses to propel forward.

The brands that will take advantage of this will enjoy faster marketing velocity, which, in turn, will further Acquia’s Open DXP lead over slower, proprietary solutions like Sitecore and Adobe Experience Manager.