What will Drupal 8 mean for the European market?

Drupal has traditionally been strong in the US, while other solutions, above all TYPO3, are strongly represented in Europe. With Drupal 8, a fundamentally revised version of Acquia’s software will be launched on the global market in the foreseeable future. Read here what impact this could have on the European market.

(Reading time: 6 minutes)

Enterprise market and total installed base

The figures on the market shares of open source CMS should be treated with caution. On the one hand, they differ considerably from service to service (CMS Crawler, builtwith.com etc.). On the other hand, they tempt the reader to draw the wrong conclusions. What we are basically interested in are the websites of medium-sized and large companies. However, all indexes include all installations, which is one reason why WordPress, for example, is so widespread. Müller’s, Meier’s and even Veuve’s blogs are based on it. The figures are therefore quite correct, but they are not relevant, as the distribution of WordPress in the enterprise segment is insignificant (with the obligatory exceptions).

In the enterprise segment, TYPO3 CMS is the clear leader in the European market. In the US, Drupal takes over this part. Even though there are Drupal installations for larger companies in Europe, the system has not yet been able to establish itself here to the same extent as in the US. Why is that?

Quarterly thinking vs. investment thinking

In the US, the life cycles of a website are significantly shorter. On the one hand, this has to do with the “quarterly thinking” of the American economy. Every new marketing manager, every IT manager will soon set up a new web project and projects are generally written off in a shorter time. In Europe, on the other hand, an “investment mindset” prevails. The web platform is seen as an investment that will be developed further. Even if the appearance is repeatedly revised over the years. While Drupal was de facto almost impossible to update until now, TYPO3 has clear advantages here. To a certain extent, the products correspond to the basic mentalities that prevail in the respective markets.

Of course, there are also other reasons why TYPO3 has not become more widespread in the US. For one thing, there is the name, which is not ideal in the US (typo3). On the other hand, it is not the case that Americans are enthusiastic about European developments. However, there are prominent large American companies that rely on TYPO3.

Drupal 8 – the game changer?

If you ask German agencies why they haven’t used Drupal so far, the answer in many places is that the code quality is simply not good enough. TYPO3 service providers in particular are proud of their quality standards and do not want to make any compromises in this respect. This claim is supported by demand (investment thinking), which also places value on quality.

Quality and Drupal?

Drupal 8 has been completely redeveloped and it seems that the quality has been improved. Drupal 8 is programmed completely object-oriented. The development phase of this mammoth project, which has been going on since March 2011, is characterized by the implementation and targeted realization of new features and concepts. If you observe the (communicated) progress, you get the impression that work is being carried out carefully and deliberately. This is, if I may say so, unusual for an American software company. Usually there is more of a “release-over-completion” mentality. Most European agencies will therefore take a closer look at Drupal 8 and it is to be expected that one or the other will rely on it in the future. This may be to the detriment of TYPO3 on the one hand, but primarily affect the proprietary system manufacturers.

Symfony and Drupal

In my opinion, the use of Symfony components in Drupal 8 is a clever move. Even if this means that Drupal 8 is not completely based on Symfony(more information, technically), Drupal 8 will be at least partially interoperable with Symfony applications. This is a no-brainer, especially for IT decision-makers. If, as a CIO, I already run Symfony applications, I will certainly opt for a CMS that uses the same framework as a precaution. What this actually looks like in terms of implementation and use is of secondary importance. From a decision-maker’s point of view, this is a no-brainer for now.

Range of functions

Drupal 8 will come with extensive improvements and new features compared to Drupal 7. This naturally extends the development time considerably. The fact that this is being accepted is admirable, but not surprising, as Drupal 8 is declared as the successor to version 7. This means that if the new version is to be a success, users must at least be able to use the familiar features in the familiar quality. Acquia continues to be successful not least due to the massive, venture-based investments in sales and business development and is thus able to continuously gain market share even with Drupal 7. The lack of pressure to innovate (compared to other sectors) in the CMS industry also gives Acquia enough freedom and time to finish developing the system with a sense of calm. Feature completeness will be an enormous advantage on the market. It is generally valued more highly by customers, at least in the medium term, than a few killer features.

Marketing and business development efforts in EMEA

It is an open secret that Acquia is stepping up its efforts in the European market. Two venture capital rounds (Series F Round, NEA and Amazon). We will only see the real efforts once Drupal 8 is released. Acquia will invest significantly in the European market and try to generate “gravity”, as the Americans call it. This will increase the demand for Drupal solutions, which will again lead to agencies having more reasons to include Drupal 8 in their product portfolio. This will be easier for them than with other solutions, as developers with Symfony know-how can work with Drupal 8 relatively easily. At least they won’t find it unappealing.

The points listed above will push Drupal 8 in the European market. So far Acquia does not have an office in Germany and still 75% of all Acquia employees (now 575 people) are in the US. However, in order to crack the European market, they need an office in Germany. I think it won’t be long after the release of Drupal 8 before we see them.

When will Drupal 8 be released?

The question that many people are asking is when Drupal 8 will be released. Cleverly, we are not going down the slippery slope and so far it has been communicated that Drupal 8 will be released when it is ready. The definition of ready is not entirely clear. Drupal 8 is currently in the beta phase and will go into the release candidate phase as soon as all critical issues have been fixed. There are currently 84 issues, the log can be found here. If it is fixed at the same speed as before, we will see Drupal 8 on the market in the first half of 2015.