Ektron

Market position

Ektron was an established, independent, employee-owned vendor in the enterprise web content management market, positioned in the Visionaries quadrant of Gartner's 2009 Magic Quadrant. Press coverage in 2014 described it as sitting in the middle of the pack of WCM vendors with revenue in the $30-50 million range, in a market that was commoditizing and shifting from web-only content management toward multi-channel customer experience management.

Management positioned the company around web-project success and customer service rather than software sales alone, backed by a services infrastructure supporting both end clients and partners, and around technologies such as the eSync bi-directional synchronization engine and PageBuilder. It emphasized deep support for branded public-facing sites, including deployment, user-generated content synchronization and localization, in contrast with document- and collaboration-focused tools such as SharePoint.

Technology

A Microsoft .NET-based web content management platform (Ektron CMS400.NET) with the eWebEditPro WYSIWYG editor, PageBuilder drag-and-drop page assembly, the eSync bi-directional synchronization engine, social media widgets integrating sources such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Salesforce and TestTrackPro, marketing optimization and content targeting, responsive design support, SharePoint integration, Amazon EC2 cloud support and a managed cloud hosting option.

Go-to-market

Direct enterprise sales supported by a services organization, together with a large partner program and distribution channel; the 2013 financing was earmarked for expanded sales and marketing programs to broaden global reach.

Global organizations and enterprises building corporate websites, intranet portals and social communities, including customers in financial services, education, healthcare, technology, manufacturing, non-profit and the public sector. Named customers included Microsoft, NASDAQ, National Health Services UK, Carnegie Hall, Diageo, Home Depot, Kodak, Saint-Gobain, the University of Notre Dame, Fairmont Raffles Hotels International, Las Vegas Sands, Walmart, National Geographic, Lloyd's Bank and John Hancock Long-term Insurance.

Geography

Headquartered in Nashua, New Hampshire, with offices in Australia (Sydney), Canada, Singapore and the United Kingdom, and country websites for the UK and Australia.

History

Founded in 1998 in the basement of Bill Rogers' house in Hollis, New Hampshire, Ektron first shipped the eWebEditPro WYSIWYG editor before building its own CMS, culminating in Ektron CMS400.NET. By 2009 it had grown to over 200 employees and more than 7,500 CMS customers, and was placed in the Visionaries quadrant of Gartner's 2009 Magic Quadrant. The company expanded internationally, relocating its Australian office to Sydney and opening an office in Singapore, and reported more than 8,000 customers in 2011 and more than 3,800 customers with over 12,000 websites in 2013. It raised only three outside financing rounds in its first 15 years, totalling $4.5 million, the last of which was a 2013 angel round led by CEI Ventures. In 2014 it received an undisclosed additional investment from private equity firm Accel-KKR amid press rumors of an outright sale, and in 2015 it was acquired by Episerver, now Optimizely.

Risks & controversies

Reported sale terms in December 2014 were unconfirmed and the company declined to comment on them, and the reported deal value was low relative to comparable enterprise software transactions such as Telerik's $262.5 million sale. The web content management market was described as increasingly commoditized and shifting toward multi-channel customer experience management. Following the acquisition, active development of Ektron ceased and remaining users face migration to newer platforms.