Adobe acquires ecommerce provider Magento

By the end of August 2018, Adobe will finalise a $1.68 billion acquisition of Magento, a provider of ecommerce services.

According to Adobe, the acquisition allows Adobe to access Magento's developer community and leverage its customer base to reach companies at varying stages of their ecommerce evolution. The move seeks to close the loop around data, marketing, and commerce, and follows similar buys by SAP, Oracle, and Salesforce over recent years.

In 2013, SAP acquired Hybris for $1 billion, while two deals in 2016 in the same category crossed the $12 billion mark, with Oracle's acquisition of NetSuite for $9.3 billion and the Salesforce acquisition of Demandware for $2.8 billion.

According to Hamaad Ravda, former CMO for Daraz at the Alibaba Group, the acquisition will drive deeper integrations between the Adobe and Magento platforms.

"As more old school players are coming online and going digital, the pendulum is swinging back," said Ravda. "So there are companies that would just like a full-blown integrated solution, without all the hassle of making everything to speak to each other."

He added that current customers of Adobe and Magento would come across lower overall costs of deployment once they factor in a discount on an overall package.

Emily Lim, the MD for the Center of Excellence at Lion & Lion in Malaysia, said that Magento’s acquisition is integral to Adobe’s product expansion when offering business solutions to the market.

"Adobe is a market leader in infrastructure and technology, UX/UI and design leadership, which is something Magento needs," she said. "Magento sells on easy to use functionalities, but it’s not the most intuitive ecommerce platform like, say, Shopify, which onboards new users faster.”

She anticipates the acquisition will drive quality and intuitive ecommerce for the future, not only adding value to Adobe but to businesses and entrepreneurs.