Monday, March 3, 2008

Acquia adds new services for open-source Drupal

By Christopher Calnan

Acquia Inc. has launched a suite of products based on the Drupal open-source social publishing system, officials said.

Acquia, founded in June 2007, employs 12 workers. The company develops products based on Drupal, an open-source platform for Internet applications such as blogs, wikis, community networks, digital-media portals, and core web content management. The technology is most popular with media and publishing companies, said Jeff Whatcott, vice president of marketing for Acquia.

"There are some things about open-source software that people find challenging," he said. "We're going to fill that gap."

Subscriptions to Acquia's suite of services that are intended to fill that gap are scheduled for public release during the second half of year, however company officials declined to disclose the subscription prices.

The Andover-based software company also revealed its Acquia Projects, a collaborative environment for Drupal community members to participate in future Acquia products and services.

The Drupal platform has been downloaded more than 2 million times since it was released in 2001, the year it was originally created by Acquia co-founder Dries Buytaert, officials said.

In December 2007, the company attracted $7 million Series A round of financing led by North Bridge Venture Partners, Sigma Partners and O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures.