The latest Gartner report (Feb. 2022) again named Optimizely DXP a “Leader” in the Gartner Magic Quadrant. The digital experience category is a “well-integrated and cohesive set of technologies designed to enable composition, management, delivery, and optimization of contextualized digital experiences across multi-experience customer journeys.”
Optimizely DXP – A Gartner Magic Quadrant Leader in 2022
The leaders remain a select few: Optimizely, Acquia, Adobe, and Sitecore. Liferay fell out of the leader’s quadrant in this report. Sitecore also fell significantly in this report compared to January 2021. Adobe, Optimizely, and Acquia have formed a higher lead pack. The Sitecore drop is particularly interesting considering the billion-dollar investment in the platform since 2021. While both Sitecore and Optimizely are put on notice for the spate of acquisitions Sitecore suffers the more significant drop.
Optimizely has recently made a substantial number of acquisitions. Prospective and existing customers should plan for potential volatility in its roadmap, including evolving integrations of acquired technologies and disruption to sales and customer service.
Gartner
Optimizely acquired Welcome, Idio, and Zaius, recently. The Welcome acquisition adds a suite of tools for marketers focused on project management, and asset creation. In addition, Welcome adds Digital Asset Management (DAM) tools to the DXP though it is unlikely to meet enterprise DAM requirements.
Sitecore has been behind the market pace in acquiring products to improve its customer datamanagement, personalization and other capabilities. Current and prospective customers shouldcarefully evaluate the ongoing rationalization and integration strategy.
Gartner
What Gartner points out is that Sitecore is also undergoing a strategy shift toward a SaaS model. In our experience with Optimizely, this change in licensing model is difficult and disruptive for existing clients and very attractive for investors.
Surprisingly, Salesforce did not gain ground compared to the January 2021 report.
Crowded DXP Space Marketing Buzzwords
In the DXP space, Adobe remains a clear leader with the biggest drawback being the extremely high cost of ownership. While Acquia saw little movement in this update, Gartner dings them for innovating more slowly. In our view the competition in the space is tight and differentiation is limited. The marketing machines are all very sophisticated in seeking differentiation. To that end, shoppers can expect to encounter some new (and old) buzzwords in 2022.
DXP Marketing Buzzwords
- composable
- headless
- Jamstack (which stands for JavaScript, APIs, and Markup)
- orchestration (as in customer journey orchestration)
- multiexperience
- customer data platform (CDP)
At the end of the day as exciting as it may sound to compose a headless tech stack in Jamstack, the buzzwords are more confusing than helpful. Careful evaluation in our opinion should focus on the quality of the APIs provided, the tech stack (.NET, LAMP, Java. etc.), and the cost of ownership.
