English
While the IT industry is waiting for a recovery from a dramatic slowdown, Enterprise CMS / Portal specialist Hippo expands its presence in North American and European markets. Hippo's focus on standardization and leveraging existing infrastructure opens the door to unmatched ROI; a convincing argument for cash strapped companies and governments which increasingly consider the use of Open Source software a key part of their strategy.
Growth was fueled by several new product launches. CMS 7 was launched in the first half of 2009 together with the HST, Hippo's Site Toolkit for accelerated web development. Hippo's contributions to the Apache Jetspeed project culminated in the release of the all new Jetspeed 2.2, released by the Apache Software Foundation. With Apache Jetspeed Hippo's CMS suite features integrated Portal functionality for deployment in secure Enterprise environments.
On the customer side, the choice of the Government of the Netherlands for Hippo as the one central CMS for all its departments was another landmark for the role of Open Source software in the public sector. Closer to its North American headquarters, Hippo recently expanded its longtime work in the Higher Education market with a new Intranet portal brought live by the University of Southern California.
Lars Peters, EVP of Hippo USA, said "Hippo's customers see great value in giving editors and end users new and better tools to work with content. The business case for CMS and Portal integration remains strong as always, but budgets are frozen or very conservative. Using Hippo leverages the existing investment of these organizations and allows teams to move ahead and work with the next generation of content driven collaboration tools Hippo provides."
To support its new products and customers, Hippo added a total of 9 employees, bringing the total to well over 50. The addition of Apache Jetspeed veteran Randy Watler to the team in the US brought Hippo's total number of committers to the Apache Software Foundation to a round 10. The committer title is only bestowed to select individuals with substantial contributions to Open Source projects, after rigid peer review of the Apache developers community.
At the same time, Hippo increased its office space on both sides of the Atlantic: While the European headquarters was expanded at the current location, Hippo USA doubled its office space when it moved into its newly delivered office.
About Hippo
Hippo helps companies manage and access information, protect sensitive data, share knowledge, optimize collaboration and reduce operational costs through its Content Management and Portal technologies. With the combination of enterprise-class support and open source technology, Hippo provides its users with the best of both worlds: the flexibility, innovation and robustness of open source software combined with the stability, reach, and service quality of an established vendor.
Hippo is actively involved in several key standard-setting efforts such as JSR 283, 286, 301 and 329. Ten members of the Hippo team are actively involved as committers/members for The Apache Software Foundation.
The company was founded in 1999 and today has a global base of over 150 customers across the education, publishing, manufacturing, and financial services industries, as well as several government agencies. Part of the Deloitte Fast 50 in 2007 and 2008, Hippo now has over 60 employees located in its European headquarters in Amsterdam, The Netherlands and North American headquarters in San Francisco, California.
