By Stephen Powers

A UK-based marketing software company, Alterian, has moved to acquire Mediasurface, maker of both installed and hosted Web content management (WCM) products. Given the state of the WCM market, an acquisition like this is not completely unexpected, since marketers increasingly have a say (if not the final say) in WCM purchasing decisions and strategies. And enterprise content management (ECM) remains disconnected from the other technologies that those marketers need to use in order to manage multichannel campaigns. My colleague, Craig Le Clair, and I are planning to publish some research that tackles this issue - how enterprises need to support their marketing teams through a combination of integrated ECM and marketing processes. We'll also be speaking on that topic at Forrester's IT Forum this week (OK - that was a blatant plug, but you have to admit the timing worked out pretty well).

Alterian's move is an interesting one, and helps move them towards an overall product suite that can better serve marketers. It certainly will make Alterian's competition think about the advantages of having some content management capabilities, and there are several pure play WCM vendors out there that are ripe for the picking. Stay tuned.