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KnowNow + WP = enterprise blogging

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Toni Schneider
in

Fortune 500 companies are discovering WordPress. They are figuring out that blogging is a great tool for fostering more open and active collaboration with customers and between employees. This trend was anticipated in several places, including Robert Scoble and Shel Israel’s book Naked Conversations and a recent Forrester report on enterprise blogging by Charlene Li (they listed WordPress as a leading platform).

We began addressing this “enterprise demand” a few months ago with our professional support subscriptions for companies who need help deploying the WordPress open source package. The support service has been a success with new signups every week. But some customers are asking for more. They’d like a fully supported enterprise version of WordPress that easily integrates with other enterprise systems and comes in both hosted and non-hosted form.

Wanting to address this additional demand, but knowing that we have little experience with enterprise sales and integration, we decided to look for a partner. Our search led us to KnowNow, a leading provider of enterprise RSS solutions. KnowNow is building an impressive list of Fortune 500 customers for their RSS aggregation tools (announced ones include Wells Fargo and CSAA). Given their proven ability to satisfy enterprise customers and the complementary nature of RSS and blogging, we feel that they are an ideal partner to bring to market an enterprise optimized version of WordPress. It will be called the KnowNow WordPress Enterprise Edition (KWEE), please check it out and contact them if you’re interested to learn more.

KnowNow plans to be active in the WordPress community and release their enterprise improvements as open source (they are looking to hire WordPress experts who know enterprise software, please contact me if you are interested). This should strengthen the WordPress platform and create more demand for WordPress related services from corporate customers. At the same time, this partnership allows us at Automattic to stay focused on what we do best – creating great publishing software and consumer services like WordPress.com and Akismet.

UPDATE: KnowNow did not make it as a business and the KWEE product is no longer available

Comments

19 responses to “KnowNow + WP = enterprise blogging”

  1. shel israel Avatar
    shel israel

    Congrats. This is a deal that makes sense and strengthens the position of both WordPress and KnowNow. More important, having this new choice is good for customers.

    Reply
  2. GigaOM » Wordpress teams up with KnowNow for enterprise

    […] WordPress has teamed up with RSS platform provider KnowNow in a deal that will help expand WordPress into the enterprise, writes Automattic CEO Toni Schneider on his blog. It will be called the KnowNow WordPress Enterprise Edition (KWEE.) Disclosure: Toni is a general partner at True Ventures, an investor in GigaOM. […]

    Reply
  3. Quoi9 » Blog Archive » WordPress.com sort Edition Entreprise et double Typepad

    […] Une des secteurs dans lequel WordPress surpasse est les Widgets, applications Web en miniature, que les utilisateurs peuvent intégrer dans leurs blogs. Ils sont aux nombres de 247 à l’heure où j’écris, et sont, pour la plupart, développés par cette communauté dynamique et internationale qui s’est construite autour du WP.source – toni.wordpress.com & readwriteweb Posted by robson Filed in WordPress […]

    Reply
  4. Weblog Tools Collection » KnowNow WordPress Enterprise Edition

    […] KnowNow WordPress Enterprise Edition Toni spoke with MacManus about the collaboration between Automattic and KnowHow that developed into KWEE. KnowHow will market KWEE to their existing enterprise customer base and will also make it available for hosting on customers’ servers. The product will be shipped with Akismet (not sure about the remote component) and a stats package and any enhancements that the Knowhow folks will make to WordPress will be released back as Open Source. Link to Toni’s blog post announcing the collaboration and some of the explanation behind it. (No Ratings Yet)  Loading … tagged Blogging News, knowhow, kwee and wordpress   If you enjoyed this post from Weblog Tools Collection please Subscribe to the RSS feed. Related Posts from the Past: […]

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    […] Apparently blogosphere is well aware that SixApart was falling way behind in terms of innovation, all they were trying to do is catching up. Only thing that giving some space to SixApart was their enterprise blog platform. WordPress already have TypeAd style hosted version WordPress.com, the missing was a true enterprise edition like MT. Well not anymore, since Toni Schneider, CEO of Automattic Inc – the company set up to leverage the popular open source blogging tool WordPress, announced partnership with enterprise RSS vendor KnowNow, for a new product called KnowNow WordPress Enterprise Edition (KWEE).  In tony’s own words- Wanting to address this additional demand, but knowing that we have little experience with enterprise sales and integration, we decided to look for a partner. Our search led us to KnowNow, a leading provider of enterprise RSS solutions. KnowNow is building an impressive list of Fortune 500 customers for their RSS aggregation tools (announced ones include Wells Fargo and CSAA). Given their proven ability to satisfy enterprise customers and the complementary nature of RSS and blogging, we feel that they are an ideal partner to bring to market an enterprise optimized version of WordPress. It will be called the KnowNow WordPress Enterprise Edition (KWEE), please check it out and contact them if you’re interested to learn more. […]

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  8. Wordpress Goes Enterprise on iface thoughts

    […] WordPress is now officially targetting enterprise customers. It has parterned with KnowNow – a leading provider of feed solutions – to create KnowNow WordPress Enterprise Edition (KWEE). KWEE is a WordPress MU edition that is open to KnowNow for modifications but they will have to release it back to the open source tool. […]

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  9. soulsoup » » WordPress Enterprise Edition e-learning blog, elearning blog, knowledge management, e-learning strategy, learning experience design, usability

    […] From : Read/WriteWeb The competition with SixApart was stepped up today when Toni announced on his blog a partnership with enterprise RSS vendor KnowNow, for a new product called KnowNow WordPress Enterprise Edition (KWEE). It’s an enterprise version of WordPress and comes just a month after SixApart […]

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  10. KtecK Blog – Syndicated » Blog Archive » Wordpress Takes On SixApart With Enterprise Edition and Wordpress.com

    […] The competition with SixApart was stepped up today when Toni announced on his blog a partnership with enterprise RSS vendor KnowNow, for a new product called KnowNow WordPress Enterprise Edition (KWEE). It’s an enterprise version of WordPress and comes just a month after SixApart announced Movable Type Enterprise 1.5, which we profiled on Read/WriteWeb. Toni told me that KWEE is an enterprise package of WordPress MU (the multi-user version of WordPress) – with additional enterprise functionality bundled in. So for example KWEE comes with LDAP, Automattic’s spam solution Akismet and a stats package. KnowNow will market the product to their existing base of enterprise customers – and any improvements that KnowNow makes to the WordPress product itself, will be released back as open source. […]

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    Reply
  12. Sylvain Avatar
    Sylvain

    I've translated this article in French. I've co-founded and manage blog enterprise agency using WordPress as the solution and If you are interested by a french expert of blogging and wordpress use in enterprise, contact me 🙂

    Reply
  13. Blog Marketing : La solution de blog pour entreprises. Creation et animation. » KnowNow WordPress (KWEE)

    […] KnowNow + WP = blog d’entreprise Cet article est une “traduction” de knownow-wp-enterprise-blogging par Toni, responsable de WordPress.com Les 500 principales entreprises ont découvert WordPress. Elles découvrent  que blogging est un grand outil ouvert de stimulation et de  collaboration active avec des clients et entre les employés. Cette tendance a été anticipé à différents endroits, notamment dans le livre “Naked Conversations” de Robert Scoble et Shel Israel ou dans le rapport Forrester “Blogging d’entreprise” par Charlene Li (WordPress est citée comme principale plateforme) […]

    Reply
  14. Wordpress rocks …the Enterprise! « c/o operative

    […] In dem Gespräch ging es vor allem um einen Vergleich mit dem Konkurrenten Six Apart und dessen Produktpalette. Anlass war Toni’s Ankündigung eines neuen, speziell auf Unternehmen zugeschnittenen Produkts in Kooperation mit der Syndication Technologie Firma KnowNow. Es hört auf den einprägsamen Namen KnowNowWordPress Enterprise Edition (KWEE) und wird auf Basis von WordPress MU (der Multi-User Version von WordPress) entwickelt. Six Apart hatte erst vor einem Monat sein neues Unternehmenspaket Movable Type Enterprise 1.5 vorgestellt. […]

    Reply
  15. Lorelle VanFossen Avatar
    Lorelle VanFossen

    I was looking for an update on the relationship with WordPressMU and Knowhow and find that their site is down. I assume this means there is news. 😀 Might want to update this.

    Reply
    1. Toni Avatar
      Toni

      Thanks Lorelle, post has been updated.

      Reply
      1. Jeffro Avatar
        Jeffro

        Hah, I just did the same thing as Lorelle and noticed the company disappeared! Makes for good history regarding WordPress though.

        Reply
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