I’ve long been a fan of StudioPress and over the years its really become my go-to platform for WordPress development, not to mention that their WordPress themes are awesome, solidly built for use and can scale to meet even the most beginner WordPress user out there. I was surprised to hear about this acquisition today when I scrolled through my Facebook feed and instantly became concerned for the future of one of my favorite WordPress Theme Platform companies. There is still a lot that is unclear at this point but a few details about the vision behind the acquisition are as follows…
- Continued Development of Genesis Framework – I was glad to see that WP Engine will still be focusing on continued development of Genesis. Honestly if StudioPress themes are the “Big Mac” then Genesis is the “Special Sauce”. The other piece is that WP Engine is has plans to start looking at integrating Genesis into its Digital Experience Platform. That should be interesting to here how this integration is performed and how it enhances the current offering.
- Aligning StudioPress Themes with WP Engine digital experience – I’m a little cautious about how this will play out and only time will tell but WP Engine is NOT a WordPress theme development company. They really help their clients manage their digital experiences (aka “environments where WordPress is deployed”) so it should be interesting to see how this evolves.
- Expanding the ecosystem – this acquisition will help to expand WP Engine’s support of Third Party plugins and products that will add functionality/support of the Genesis Framework. Given that WP Engine is all about clients digital experiences this move could help Genesis as a framework and its use to its customer base.
At the end of the day, only time will tell how successful this acquisition will be but given that WP Engine is an industry leader in digital experience for WordPress this could prove very benefit for both WP Engine and StudioPress in the end.