Transcript:

As many of you know I’ve grown up in the open source and CMS world. I have had the distinct privilege of working & volunteering in multiple open source communities and have been able to witness firsthand the power of community. I’ve also had the opportunity to see the struggle between community & company. I’ve seen the benefits and detriments to all different types of organizational structures and have lately been spending considerable time holding meetings, asking questions and listening to answers as it relates to the Mautic community and organizational structure. Now I am eager to share the results of those discussions and the path for our future.

One of the things which prompted these various meetings and discussions was a common question, maybe even some concern which I began to hear repeated within the community and from customers of the Mautic.com service. There was a growing sense of frustration and confusion surrounding the support for Mautic.com users. Those users who were subscribed to the Allyde service provided at Mautic.com were unsure where to find answers to their questions or gain support. Was the Mautic community forums only for self-hosted Mautic users? Was Slack available for everyone? I admit it was terribly annoying and distinctly frustrating for everyone.

But it wasn’t just the Allyde users who were confused and frustrated. The community grew frustrated because of features available on Mautic.com (and provided by Allyde) that were not available in the core Mautic installation. Of course Allyde was merely doing what any company might do (creating a plugin integration to extend Mautic with additional features). But still the frustrations existed and it bothered me (and others).

This frustration was felt by everyone and it was not the feeling we wanted anyone in our community or as Allyde customers to experience. Then there was the additional problems related to potential hinderances to growth, the speed of our innovation, and the power of an open cloud solution.

And so I began talking with people. I reached out to open source experts, trusted advisors, and our own Mautic community leaders. I discussed possible solutions and ways to improve the situation. And as I mentioned before - I’m extremely excited to share the results of those meetings.

Over the next week Allyde and Mautic will join to be a single Mautic brand. This means Mautic.com will be run by Mautic and will now be providing cloud-based Mautic installations directly to the community and to others. This means a simplified user experience for everyone. And not just support - an improved Mautic product will be made available as a result as well. Those features previously only available on Mautic.com will be slowly integrated into the core Mautic product and made available to everyone.

I know there are questions as a result of this process and I certainly want to make sure I answer them all to the best of my ability. Let me attempt to do that now. If you have questions feel free to send them in and I’ll do my best to answer quickly.

Q&A:

Why is the merger occurring?
There are a few main value drivers behind this merger. They are:

• Growth: With a market penetration of just over 12%, there is an immense opportunity to leverage the growth engine of the Mautic.com SaaS solution and open source philosophy to increase awareness and growth.
• Innovation: Innovation is happening in the open source community and is being realized by SaaS adoption. By fostering innovation at the community level and leveraging the growth of SaaS, we can continue to innovate Mautic as a growth platform.
• Consistency: There is currently a disconnect between the service that Allyde provides at Mautic.com and the open source community/solution that is Mautic.org. Because these solutions are not any different, combining these groups will eliminate confusion and allow us to provide the best possible customer experience from a single point.

What will the corporate structure look like? Who will run what?
We recognize that with any organization requires structure. Mautic’s structure will be based entirely on its goal of creating the best marketing automation software and making it available to everyone. To that end, I will continue to lead the effort in working with the community of developers/users to add innovative new features and grow the open source solution. Additional team members have been brought on to address specific client use cases, such as enterprises and agencies. These services will be combined with Allyde’s existing cloud service and sold as value-added services offered on Mautic.com.

Will Mautic continue to be open source?
Yes. This will never change. Mautic will always be free. Even as we seek to provide additional value to more businesses with a variety of add-on services, our core belief in the philosophy of open source will not change.

Will the developer community continue to play a role in the direction of the solution?
The developer community is vital to Mautic. Without the community, it is nothing. For that reason, the open source community will absolutely play an integral role in it’s growth.

Is this just a way to make money?
We believe in the foundation of our community. It is the community that has propelled our growth. This merger is not about money. It is about further strengthening the Mautic brand and allowing us the opportunity to provide even more value to a wider segment of people. The core of Mautic will always be the philosophy of empowering organizations to reach their audience with an open source solution. This merger helps to accomplish this by providing our community and users with even more opportunity to connect and share value via Mautic.

What will happen to Allyde’s partner program?
Our partner program began with a single focus, to provide businesses with an opportunity to extend their brand with “new-to-the-market” services equipped to increase their audience. We still believe these services are valuable and that more organizations are looking for opportunities to do just that. We also recognize that a simplification in branding will help to raise awareness of our partners. Automation services are in great demand and so too are organizations that can guide them to successful implementation. We will continue to offer the Partnership Program and will work to provide an exciting option for organizations. The partner program will only change in name and ultimately become even more of a powerful value-add for our partners.

If you have any additional questions, please do not hesitate to visit the forum, Slack or contact us via email. Our goal is to be as open as possible and provide as much information as we can.

Thank you for being a part of this amazing community!