14 DAY TRIAL // Adobe, the largest web-design and web-development tool provider in the world has acquired Business Catalyst, a small company that offers a platform for web-designers to build e-commerce websites without any programming skills. Business Catalyst is also the owner of the GoodBarry platform, which was included in the transaction.
The acquisition was announced on Business Catalyst's and GoodBarry's website, along with a transaction FAQ page. No details have been released yet by none of the parties about the acquisition's cost or software integration details.
GoodBarry, an e-commerce suite offered to Business Catalyst clients (web-designers, web developers, programmers, IT specialists, etc.) as a way of building complete e-commerce applications for their own clients, will be shut down in the following months. No free trials will be available after October 1, 2009, and no service upgrades will be possible after November 1, 2009. Any upgrades to GoodBarry platforms will be available only through Business Catalyst partners or resellers.
“There are some changes we'll be making to GoodBarry in the coming months. Most importantly, we'll be refocusing our marketing and sales efforts on the web professional market (via businesscatalyst.com), as opposed to web-savvy DIYers such as you,” the official GoodBarry press release says. “In other words, this means that eventually we will cease ‘retail’ operations and focus on our wholesale operations, and we will only be selling subscriptions to our software via our partner and reseller network.”
On the other hand, Business Catalyst owners have disclosed some basic information about the acquisition, assuring customers and employees alike that the Business Catalyst team will remain the same, and only the company's ownership will change from the current owners, Bardia Housman and Adam Broadway, to Adobe Inc.
This comes as a sign of good faith from Business Catalyst and Adobe representatives after the recent fiasco in the Oracle - Sun merger that led to the departure of members of the JRuby development team, after Oracle and Sun representatives failed to lay out future plans for the company.
Business Catalyst co-founder Bardia Housman has managed to rack up the second big financial deal of her career, after she previously founded the Smart email provider in 1997 and successfully sold it to Looksmart in 1999.