
If third-party solutions falter during the pandemic, that’s bad news for merchants and for the ecommerce platforms on which they sell. Adobe-owned Magento has come up with a scheme that could result in a win-win solution for all parties concerned.
In a nutshell, Adobe explained: “To help Magento Solution Partners in the Adobe Solution Partner Program and the hundreds of developers that they employ, we’re announcing a new program that enables our partners to temporarily allocate their Magento talent to Adobe development projects, including Magento Community Engineering Program initiatives, to help us accelerate the Magento product roadmap.”
Third-party developers include services that help online sellers with their website design, custom development, and marketing.
A spokesperson told EcommerceBytes it will enable the partners to avoid furloughing or laying off their team members due to business disruptions and better plan for recovery once business picks up post-COVID-19. And working on Magento “ultimately benefits our mutual customers” (the merchants).
In a blog post announcing the initiative, Adobe executive Gary Specter said contributions could take the form of creating new functionality or updating to existing features, tests, documentation (such as developer guides, user guides, examples, or specifications), bug fixes, optimizations and more. “Priority features for the Community Engineering Program include extending GraphQL and Progressive Web Apps functionalities, integration between Magento and other Adobe applications, and extending B2B capabilities.”
Magento already had a Community Engineering team in place that facilitated contributions from developers globally, allowing it to launch new features and extend its capabilities. In fact, Magento Solutions Partners contributed nearly 50 percent of the code in the Community Engineering Program in 2019, Specter said.
“Today, a significant percentage of Adobe’s commerce projects are co-sold with our over 400 Solution Partners worldwide. We’re proud to partner with organizations around the world that share our commitment to helping our joint customers drive commerce success through the Magento platform,” he said.
You can find the full announcement on the Magento blog.