Boston web services firm receives big investment
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Boston web services firm receives big investment

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Boston web services firm receives big investment

The Boston web services firm Acquia has received $50 Million in investment funding, putting their total received at $189 Million. The firm provides web hosting and website management services for businesses, schools, and governments using the Drupal technology platform. Although Drupal is an open-source technology, with no licensing fees for it, Acquia makes its business by providing website hosting that is optimized for Drupal websites and services that support customers and developers who use the Drupal platform.

About Drupal website technology

Drupal is a highly customizable website management system that makes it possible for average users to add content to a site, and for that content to be re-used. For example, a marketing director could create a webpage or update a blog without needing to use HTML code. This website content management system, or CMS, is similar in principal to other open-source platforms such as WordPress or Joomla! What sets Drupal apart is the extent to which Drupal can be customized, the availability of hundreds of free modules from different developers that extend its core functionality, and the extensive developer community which share ideas and modules they develop.

Skills needed to Create Websites with Drupal

While Drupal websites still create HTML code, the typical user doesn’t need to understand webs design or web development, they can work entirely without needing to know HTML or CSS, which are the languages used by web developers and designers. While web developers continue to have a need to learn HTML and take CSS training in order to create page designs, they also need to understand the inner workings of this platform and typically take Drupal classes to learn the skills needed to create and manage Drupal websites. Some web developers also come to Drupal after having worked with other similar content management systems.

Different Drupal website services

While Drupal websites can run on any website with a database, Acquia is looking to be more than a hosting provider. In fact, they don’t even run any web servers themselves. Rather, they rely on Amazon’s web servers, which they customize and optimize for Drupal websites. Companies and government agencies are able to build open-source Drupal websites and pay Acquia to host the site on an optimized server and also be available for the more advanced support that web developers need.

With thousands of customers and many outside investors, it appears that Acquia will continue to keep their web services firm in the Boston area for the foreseeable future.

About the author

Christopher Smith is president of American Graphics Institute. He is the co-author of Adobe Creative Cloud for Dummies and more than 10 other books on design and digital publishing. He served as publisher and editor of the Digital Classroom book series, which has sold more than one million books on topics relating to InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, Premiere Pro and other Creative Cloud apps. At American Graphics Institute, he provides strategic technology consulting to marketing professionals, publishers designers, and large technology companies including Google, Apple, Microsoft, and HP. An expert on web analytics and digital marketing, he also delivers Google Analytics classes along with workshops on digital marketing topics. Christopher did his undergraduate studies the at the University of Minnesota, and then worked for Quark, Inc. prior to joining American Graphics Institute where he has worked for more than 20 years.