We've always played on the fact the we are vendor agnostic and independent from the WCM companies we partner with. Sometimes it's not an easy space to occupy with some vendors being less than comfortable with the arrangement due to numerous perceived 'conflicts of interest' - mostly brought about by their paranoia and blind faith in their 'best of breed' product.

For us, becoming agnostic simply made good sound commercial sense. Afterall, when we started trading almost three years ago we were a 100% Obtree C4 house and what with its end of life in sight (there, someone finally said what everyone knows!) if we hadn't adapted, our own end of life would be fast approaching too.

Now we're actively supporting clients with WCM solutions and developments in Immediacy, Sitecore, EpiServer, Pepperio as well as RedDot and good old soon to be departed (oops, said it again) Livelink WCMPS/Obtree C4. 

Simon has blogged many times about our WCM to WCM Migration offering, MIM:Switch. It's very exciting for us that the MIM:Switch toolset is now being used in anger for the first time at a major UK organisation to assist in their move away from Livelink WCMPS/Obtree C4. Which solution are they moving to? They/we don't know yet but that's not important... we're vendor agnostic! 

I was at the Immediacy Partner Day on Wednesday in London and met the new owners (Alterian) for the first time. The mood amongst the Immediacy, sorry Alterian as they now are, staff was very buoyant. Alterian has come in and appears to have taken the time to understand the businesses - Immediacy and Mediasurface - and rationalised the operations to act as one company. The upshot of this is one support team, one product management team, one sales team etc. which broadens the offering the partners can provide.

It was a very interesting day not least as the team demo'ed the new version 6.1 and then presented their vision for the integration of the Alterian Digital marketing software into the WCM offerings.  If Alterian achieves what they are planning we will see some very innovative and exciting functionality in the WCM platforms some time next year.

Today Mediasurface announced that their board has agreed to sell the entire stock to Alterian plc. A notification on the Mediasurface web site reads...

'Recommended Offer by Alterian plc for Mediasurface plc

The boards of Alterian and Mediasurface are today pleased to announce that they have reached agreement on the terms of a recommended offer by Alterian to acquire the entire issued and to be issued share capital of Mediasurface.'

The notification goes on to assure Mediasurface customers (which includes users of Morello, Immediacy and Pepperio) that their service will be unchanged.

Mimtech look forward to working with the new enterprise. 

Apparently it is fashionable for commentators to make predictions for the next year. So I thought I might try and predict what is in store for Mimtech.

1. In January we have new staff joining us (not a prediction, I have already hired them) so I expect there to be more going on in the office and having to make tea less often
2. We have some training lined up in different WCM platforms for most of the techie guys so I predict a lot more geek speak and jargon being bandied around
3. We will launch a new offering in January but I won't spoil the surprise just yet, we will be getting a lot of attention and new and exciting business in the New Year
4. I will be more tired (my wife is having our second child next week)
5. Obtree users will start to consider their investment a bit more carefully
6. Mimtech will land our first big implementation in New Zealand early next year, this is already at a fairly advanced stage in the sales process
7. Lots of new processes, as we grow this is inevitable if a bit dull
8. Less chatter about Web 2.0 and more real value add development work being done in general
9. More community activity in the WCM space we operate in
10. Software as a service replacing Web  2.0 as the buzz phrase of the moment
11. Uses have more control over the presentation layer
    
12. Celtic and Rangers striking a deal to become one club - Glasgow United. Or maybe an end to world poverty and conflict. Or Microsoft bringing out some bug free software. Or Apple releasing a product that doesn't start with i. Obese being the new size zero. I appear to have run out of sensible ideas.
    

I'm over the ditch in Sydney for a few days and just about to have a working breakfast with Chris Tew, SVP Asia Pacific for Mediasurface.

Full on schedule packing in three days Immediacy training, a couple client visits and catching up with an old drinking buddie from Lochcarron before flying back to Auckland from the West Island on Thursday night. Who says you can't burn the candle at both ends?

It has gone past 1 o'clock in the morning and Doug and I have joined Adam in New Zealand and Chris and John from Immediacy in Australia for a live demo to a NZ client. It is just the start for us in this part of the world but already I'm thinking of the time (in the near future) when the NZ team is bigger and more autonomous.

The truth is that Adam doesn't need us to do this. He's more than capable, but it's the first one and I want to be able to say 'remember when we used to do webex's through the night when we were just a new business in this part of the world?'.

All the start up books tell you you need to learn to let go. Not hanging up the phone just yet.