e-Spirit is joining the Crownpeak family: FAQ for customers and partners

Author: Andreas-Knoor
Publication Date: 3/24/2021 18:48

Dear customers and partners,

Please find a list of questions and answers regarding e-Spirit's acquisition by Crownpeak below.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to reach out to me via email.

What kind of transaction is this - legally?

e-Spirit has been acquired by the American DXP provider Crownpeak, which, similar to e-Spirit, was founded over 20 years ago. All of e-Spirit's employees, its customers, partners, and product portfolio are included in the acquisition.  As a result, e-Spirit is leaving the adesso Group and becoming part of the Crownpeak Family.

Why did Crownpeak acquire e-Spirit?

The acquisition builds on Crownpeak’s strategy to provide a suite of solutions that empower brands to create and deliver engaging digital experiences with speed and simplicity. In particular, the acquisition will provide Crownpeak the ability to supplement their solutions with stronger content-driven commerce experiences, AI-powered personalization, and other e-Spirit components.

Together, Crownpeak and e-Spirit have a greatly expanded geographic reach and the ability to serve all industries with a powerful solution– providing unparalleled strength, ease, and flexibility in content management and digital experience delivery.

Who is Crownpeak?

Founded in 2001 Crownpeak has 120 employees, with offices in Denver, London and Salt Lake City. Crownpeak provides a cloud-based digital experience platform with headless CMS capabilities. As a SaaS-based solution, Crownpeak offers best-in-breed capabilities that empower companies to create, deploy, and optimize omnichannel digital experiences – faster and easier than ever, and with zero infrastructure to maintain.

Crownpeak also has an impressive roster of enterprise customers like Unilever, Toyota, Healthgrades, and more.

What will change for me as a customer, partner, or service provider?

All existing contracts with customers, partners, and service providers will continue and won't change.

Benefits for e-Spirit customers include:

• The creation of one of the industry’s most powerful DXP offerings, spanning from digital experience creation and delivery of content-driven commerce experiences to digital quality management, governance, and accessibility.
• Ability to leverage all best-in-breed capabilities in an agile and composable manner.
• The extended resource base of support, engineering, and industry expertise to invest in and evolve the entire suite of digital experience solutions.
• The same high level of customer support e-Spirit has always provided our customers and partners
• The combination of Crownpeak and e-Spirit will create the most agile digital experience platform for brands, regardless of location or vertical, to easily orchestrate digital experiences that build trust and maximize customer lifetime value.

Will my e-Spirit contact person remain the same?

Yes. Especially for customers and partners, there will not be any changes in order to further meet their expectations to the degree they are used to. 

Will the product/SaaS remain the same?

FirstSpirit as an On-Premises version as well as a SaaS-service will remain the same and will be maintained.

Will Dortmund, Germany still be an e-Spirit location?

Yes. Software development, services & support will still be performed and available in Dortmund. 

How will the legal form change for e-Spirit and its subsidiaries?

e-Spirit AG and e-Spirit Inc (subsidiary of e-Spirit AG) will remain as they are. The e-Spirit logo however will have the add-on ‘a Crownpeak Company’. 

What will happen to the FirstSpirit product in the future? Will anything change with regards to the long-term Roadmap?

e-Spirit and Crownpeak will work out possible effects on the joint long-term roadmap in the upcoming months.

The long-term goal is a joint digital experience platform with the best components from both worlds (FirstSpirit + Crownpeak).

Is e-Spirit still a German company? Do the strict German data protection guidelines still apply to the current solutions/software?

Yes. e-Spirit is still a German company and is therefore subject to German/European jurisdiction. The server location for hosting is still Germany. We continue to comply with the strict German data protection guidelines (e.g. ISO certification).

Will there still be an On-Premises version of FirstSpirit?

Yes. FirstSpirit will continue to be available as an on-premises as well as SaaS offering. The hybrid hosting strategy will remain in place.