US software company Adobe has announced the end of development for Business Catalyst, a hosted content management system with thousands of users around the world, and will remove all data on Business Catalyst servers on 26 March 2020 (Latest update are that Business Catalyst have extended their deadline by 1 year to 26 March 2021), leaving hundreds of Australian businesses in the lurch.

Digital marketing agency The Creative Collective says although it has been a partner of Business Catalyst (BC) and designing websites on the platform since 2009, due to the lack of development on the platform in more recent years, the company began focussing on building websites on WordPress and Shopify around 2013.

“We knew BC was getting clunky and so we haven’t launched any new BC sites in around 5 years however we have continued to support clients on there. But we are leading by example and over the past 6 months have been working hard at migrating our own company website to WordPress which has been a mammoth job,” says founder of The Creative Collective. Yvette Adams.

“Having been through that experience and learning a bunch of stuff, we’re now ready to help other local businesses who may also be caught out by the BC announcement, and we believe we’re very well positioned to do so as we understand both platforms very well,” she says.

Adams says the entire BC community were excited when Adobe acquired Business Catalyst for $110 million in August 2009 because they thought they would innovate it.

“But that never happened,” she says. “The reality was that it essentially remained the same in an ever evolving online environment, so it became more and more irrelevant.”

Adams gained further insights into the Adobe buyout of BC and subsequent development when she met with the founder of Business Catalyst, Australian Bardia Housman in San Francisco in 2013, whilst there on a tour of other top tech companies.

“I’ll never forget Bardia leaning over the table to me at the coffee shop and asking what I thought of BC since Adobe took over. I thought to myself ‘Sheez what a loaded question!’ But then I was just honest and said I didn’t think they had innovated as much as I thought they would. He agreed wholeheartedly,” she remembers.

With a firm date in place for which Adobe will stop hosting existing sites on Business Catalyst (March 26th, 2021) Yvette and her team are urging businesses…  to consider Business Catalyst alternatives and as such as are offering a free 20 minute consultation and quote.

“2021 might sound like a long time away but we are urging everyone, particularly those who built their sites some time ago i.e. over 2-3 years ago, to make moving their site a priority so they can reap the benefits including ensuring it is up to date with their current business offerings and ensuring it is mobile responsive and loads fast – both of which are now major signalling factors for Google rankings,” she says.

For more information go to https://www.thecreativecollective.com.au/byebyebc

ENDS

For interviews and photos contact info@www.thecreativecollective.com.au or 07 54511315 or Yvette Adams.

EDITOR’S NOTES

Key dates all Business Catalyst clients need to be aware of

26th March 2018 – Announcement of Business Catalyst End Of Life date for March 26th 2021 Trials can still be created from the Partner Portal or OBB, as long as they are upgraded by August 27th 2018. … … …  … … …  … … …  … … …  … … …  … … …  … … …  … … …  … … …  … … …  … … …  … … …  … … …  … … … 

18th June 2018 – No new trials can be created Support is prioritised for platform migration questions, in addition to critical security, compliance, and availability issues

27th August 2018 – No new sites can be upgraded to paid

June 1st 2019 – All sites will move to monthly billing on their first renewal date

26th MARCH 2021 – … All data will be removed from the Business Catalyst infrastructure and sites become unavailable for the public.