SDL Acquires Tridion

by Stephen Powers.

The WCM vendor landscape has shifted again, as global information management solution vendor SDL has announced that it will acquire Tridion. SDL and Tridion are touting the complementary functionality of SDL’s translation management capabilities and Tridion’s WCM product, and the inevitable tighter integration between the two. The acquision certainly provides Tridion more stability, and gives the soon-to-be-christened SDL Tridion a strong Web content globalization story. This should also give Tridion leg up in the US; Tridion has opened two US offices over the past year or so in an effort to target the North American market, but SDL already has a bigger field organization there.

My take: this isn't an earthshaking announcement, but Tridion and SDL are stronger together than they are apart. For Tridion customers, the good news is that Tridion and SDL don’t have overlapping technologies, so this acquisition shouldn’t lead to any forseeable pain for future upgrades. And the Tridion management team will be in place for the next two years, lending some stability to the acquisition.

SDL and Tridion will be announcing a technology roadmap and integration timeline sometime in the next six weeks. Stay tuned.