Earlier this week Dachis Group announced that it had acquired Stuzo, a developer of social marketing applications on the Facebook platform. This was an interesting move as Dachis was historically seen as a consultancy – advising clients in an agnostic way about tools and technologies suitable for their particular area. At the time I commented on what I saw was a “roll up” approach that Dachis was making. Founder and CEO Jeff Dachis replied saying;

jeff

Build up, roll up – either way it’s a move into a much broader strategy from the Austin based business that has attracted $50 million in funding and now has officers in eight cities across five countries. After the Stuzo release, Dachis said that the deal fitted nicely into its strategy of becoming the “world leader in Social Business Design”.

This strategy is further expanded today with the release of a product built in concert with MindTouch. This release creates a product that is an extension of a customization of MindTouch that Dachis uses for its own purposes. The product mix includes MindTouch’s regular social intranet product (authoring, social profiles, LDAP integration and branding) with the specific tools built on the platform by Dachis and its partners (workforce projects, issue tracking and workforce commenting).

Customer Focus

So what does this mean?

Well it does lead to some questions (as does the Stuzo acquisition) about Dachis’ ability to remain neutral when advising its customers. Partnering with organizations, or owning technology platforms is a tad problemmatic when advising client on the best solutions for their pain points. I put these questions to Jeff and asked how they balance the tensions. His response was interesting:

We have always been and will stay technology agnostic for the benefit of our clients.  Mindtouch was influenced by our design and architecture to create this offering and is acknowledging the credit for it…there is no tension

Jeff’s response makes sense, after all Stuzo is a platform on which to build solutions, rather than a prebaked solution set itself. The MindTouch product however is something deeper and Jeff’s response would seem to distance Dachis somewhat from the MindTouch announcement. While accepting that MindTouch was influenced by Dachis’ implantation and customization of the product, Jeff would seem to indicate that for them it was much more in keeping with the creation of a “signature range” product and as such the relationship goes no further than allowing MindTouch to leverage the credibility of the Dachis brand. As he said:

Think : Ford Explorer (Eddie Bauer Edition)… It made and sold and serviced by Ford with Eddie Bauer Styling…. : )

I touched base with Aaron Fulkerson, CEO of MindTouch to get a bit more of a feeling about this. He laid it out pretty straight – historically Dachis had a bunch of solutions that were doing a relatively poor job of meeting their needs. Using a selection of core and non-core MindTouch modules, and developing some prototype modules, Dachis were able to create a product that hit their sweet spot. In a typical open source approach, Dachis didn’t want to face the cost of developing and supporting the customizations so gave MindTouch the ability to take what they had created back to the marketplace – at arms length and with no vendor-bias.

Regardless of the sensitivities around a consultancy being seen to endorse a product – it’s important to look at this product offering and appreciate it for what it is, a solution that broadens the sorts of organizations hat MindTouch can solve pain points for. That’s good for MindTouch (sell more stuff), good for dachis (have another product in the arsenal) and ultimately good for the customers.

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Ben Kepes

Ben Kepes is a technology evangelist, an investor, a commentator and a business adviser. Ben covers the convergence of technology, mobile, ubiquity and agility, all enabled by the Cloud. His areas of interest extend to enterprise software, software integration, financial/accounting software, platforms and infrastructure as well as articulating technology simply for everyday users.

3 Comments
  • 🙂

    I realize I shouldn’t chafe when I read the title. It’s definitely a quality title as it promises to get attention. However, I must point out that MindTouch has a great deal of credibility and a significant amount of name recognition provided by tens of millions of users and thousands of customers.

    Thanks for the coverage Ben. 🙂

    • Ben, You do not do the MindTouch team the service they deserve in the post title. As Aaron pointed out, MindTouch has thousands of customers using their product everyday. We were happy to share our insight and ideas.

      Also, as a rule, publishing private conversations or DM’s verbatim without consent or informing the other party you are doing so is very bad form.

      Nonetheless, I think Aaron’s quote later in the post eloquently captures the substance of the relationship when he says: “historically Dachis had a bunch of solutions that were doing a relatively poor job of meeting their needs. Using a selection of core and non-core MindTouch modules, and developing some prototype modules, Dachis were able to create a product that hit their sweet spot. In a typical open source approach, Dachis didn’t want to face the cost of developing and supporting the customizations so gave MindTouch the ability to take what they had created back to the marketplace – at arms length and with no vendor-bias.”

      Congrats to Aaron and the MindTouch team!

      • Jeff – Agreed it was bad form to publish the DM’s – I made the judgement that they were couched in public terms but either way, agreed it’s a poor showing. WRT your comment, I’ve written plenty about MindTouch before so regular readers will know that I have significant time and respect or what they do – I’d never suggest that MindTouch lacks credibility, merely that being seen to partner with a well respected organization such as Dachis extends that credibility further…

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