EPiServer Scales for Big Data, Better Content Targeting With 200OK AB Acquisition

Digital marketing/e-commerce software provider EPiServer is scaling its technology offering to more effectively handle Big Data with the purchase of Swedish enterprise search solution vendor 200OK AB. The 200OK AB cloud-based “Truffler” application can handle large volumes of Big Data, including user data, social and mobile web content, and product and online transaction information.

Targeting Targeted Content Users
The name of the game in digital marketing and e-commerce is personalization. Marketers who can sift through terabytes and even petabytes of consumer data scattered across the web gain a huge competitive edge in finding out exactly who their customers are and what they want, allowing the delivery of content targeted to previous unattainable degrees. EPiServer delivers its technology as a SaaS solution and as an on-premises solution, and the cloud-based Truffler tool fits neatly into EPiServer’s hosted application environment.

EPiServer Has Busy Spring
The 200OK AB acquisition is the latest move in what has been a busy spring for EPiServer. The company, which itself was purchased by European private equity firm IK Investment Partners in November 2010,  bought Mediachase, a provider of an ASP.Net-based e-commerce framework (EPiServer also develops on the ASP.Net platform), in March 2012. Later that month, EPiServer released a new social media add-on for its web content management platform. The component, as Social Reach, provides a single content management interface for multiple social media networks.

And in April 2012, EPiServer introduced an add-on called Site Attention that provides content editors real-time advice on optimizing content for search engines as they are creating it.

Accelerating the ‘Pace of Innovation’
In the official press release announcing the acquisition, EPiServer said purchasing 200OK AB “accelerates our pace of innovation and helps our customers efficiently deliver the right content at the right time to their online users.” Looking at EPiServer’s recent activity, the company does appear to be committed to introducing advanced content targeting and development functionality to its users as quickly as possible, relying on acquisitions of third-party specialty solutions providers and releases of add-on components rather than going through the more time-consuming (and potentially costly) process of developing and releasing new versions of core products.

This may well prove to be the correct strategy, as time-strapped e-marketers would probably prefer to quickly deploy point solutions rather than undergo wholesale upgrades of core marketing systems. In addition cloud and SaaS technology allow point solutions to easily integrate into user architectures and deliver robust functionality.

However, EPiServer needs to ensure that the functionality of 200OK AB and other acquired IT providers also integrates properly on its own back-end architecture. The company should probably heed the advice of Swedish IT expert Ted Nyberg, who tweeted, “EPiServer buying 200OK…is probably a good move…as long as the 200OK team stays on!”