… with the acquisition of Optimost by Interwoven. This is an interesting acquirer for an MVT firm – only yesterday at E-metrics, I was saying to someone that until MVT was a built-in option in content management systems that essentially allows users to press a button and have the site “deliver the best content/layout”, it will always remain something of a challenge for many people. So clearly Interwoven have seen the opportunity to add value to their CMS platform by embedding this kind of capability.
This means that the MVT market is starting to really tighten up. Offermatica and Optimost (the two biggest players in this market) have both been acquired recently, with Kefta acquired earlier in the year by Acxiom. This really only leaves Memetrics, SiteSpect, Vertster and Widemile as independents. It looks like this market could disappear before it’s really got started.
It is interesting that a CMS company would buy an optimization company, one that is based solely on services. I work at a major financial institution and we based our MVT evaluation on our needs analysis, demos, and the JupiterResearch report on multivariate testing and optimization. Memetrics was ranked highest and is the only vendor who optimized online and offline.
The other vendors didn’t seem to have a twelve month vision, let alone a multiyear one.
Hi Ian,
Just picked up your blog from a google alert – like it a lot 🙂
The extra publicity these acquisitions generates is great for all players in the market and it helps reinforce the business cases we are putting to our prospects and partners.
Your list of remaining independant providers of multivariate testing is pretty comprehensive but you missed out my company, Maxymiser. We have a very strong European client list and some interesting technologies that lead the market, worldwide.
Look me up when you’re next updating your buyer’s guides and I’ll be happy to take you through what we can do!
Kind regards,
Alasdair
Snr. Partnerships Manager
Maxymiser
Alasdair,
Actually, I’m well aware of Maxymiser, and put you in the list before taking you out, because you’re part of a larger organization, the IDE Group. That was probably a little pedantic in retrospect, but I had to draw the “independent” line somewhere, and decided to draw it around companies for whom MVT is their principle and only business. This despite the fact that I have a soft spot for any technology company that comes out of the UK. 🙂
Cheers,
Ian
Hi Ian,
Aha, well we operate as a separate entity and the other group companies operate B2C sites so it’s not like we’re owned by an Email Marketing or CMS concern.
thanks for your mail, glad you were aware of us 🙂
Kind regards,
Alasdair