Acquia Announces Open Social Business Software Commons 2.0

SOURCE: Acquia

Acquia, the leading provider of commercial solutions for Drupal, today introduced Commons 2.0, the next generation of its ready-to-use open social business software solution. Designed for organizations that want to quickly create engaging community websites, Commons 2.0 offers more options, better flexibility, and faster time to deployment than any other social software solution on the market.

Built on the industry leading open-source social publishing platform Drupal, Commons gives organizations the highest level of social business innovation possible. Commons combines rapidly evolving social web features including activity streams, social networking, blogs, wikis, badges, and events with enterprise-class analytics, support, and management services to create a pre-packaged open-source alternative to proprietary social business solutions. Built with open-source software created by a community of thousands, Commons is able to add new features at the speed of the web, giving companies unparalleled freedom to extend and adapt their community sites to meet unique business needs.

“Social software is now a business imperative, as companies build communities to improve brand loyalty, reduce customer support costs, and increase employee efficiency”, says Bryan House, Acquia’s VP of Marketing. “Commons is the alternative to costly, proprietary social business solutions – offering enterprises a more flexible, better way to create social community sites at a dramatically lower cost.”

With Acquia’s Commons, organizations can deploy a “Social-as-a-Service” solution in weeks, not months, yet retain the flexibility to create unique, branded communities to propel their business. Commons 2.0 is the better way for social business by providing the following new features:

Freedom to choose your social style and collaborate your way.
Commons 2.0 gives organizations unmatched flexibility to choose their social interaction style for their community site. They can build a community focused on activity streams and microblogging, create a Q&A environment, or launch a complete social network.

Social-as-a-Service is now faster than ever before.
Organizations can now install, configure and launch a Commons community site in the Acquia Cloud in a matter of weeks. Commons can be used out of the box, with simple configuration options to enable companies to engage customers faster than ever before. In addition, our Social Business JumpStart packages and Community Management Strategy offerings guide enterprises through the community development process, ensuring success out of the gate.

Complete control over branded community experiences with more templates, designs and features.
Enterprises have the flexibility to free themselves from branding and user experience restrictions imposed by proprietary social business tools. With Commons, enterprises have complete design and theming control over the presentation layer of their community site. Commons 2.0 will ship with multiple enterprise ready themes out-of-the-box, including the new Commons Connect and Commons Environs themes. Organizations can take advantage of pre-built Commons themes or create their own custom branded theme.

“Adoption of social business software in the enterprise is rapidly increasing. Open-source solutions have a place in the conversation about social business applications,” states Nikos Drakos, Research Director for Gartner. “They should be considered when flexibility and brand control are key requirements, especially when coupled with commercial support.”

Managed Service Options, Pricing and Availability
Customers can choose from a variety of Commons enterprise-class service packages ranging from basic support to a fully managed service, combining Acquia’s world-class Drupal optimized hosting via Acquia Cloud, Acquia’s Network support subscrip¬tion, and Remote Administration. Commons 2.0 will be available in late July. For pricing information, call +1-978-296-5250 or contact sales@acquia.com.

About Acquia™, the enterprise guide to Drupal
Acquia empowers enterprises with the open-source content management system Drupal. Co-founded by Drupal’s creator in 2007, Acquia helps customers manage their growth and scale their online properties with confidence. Acquia’s products, cloud infrastructure, and support enable companies to realize the full power of Drupal while minimizing risk as it’s done for nearly 1,500 enterprise customers including Entercomm Communications, Al Jazeera, Turner, Intuit, World Economic Forum, Stanford U, New York Senate and NPR. For more information, please visit www.acquia.com or call 888-9-ACQUIA.

View Original Press Release