MACH Alliance focuses on SaaS

Contentstack, EPAM Systems (NYSE: EPAM) and Valtech have launched the MACH Alliance, a group of independent, future-thinking tech companies dedicated to advocating for open, best-of-breed technology ecosystems.

  • Thursday, 25th June 2020 Posted 4 years ago in by Phil Alsop
The Alliance is rooted in the common belief that the interoperability and open architecture of modern software will propel current and future digital experiences. Algolia, Amplience, Cloudinary, Constructor.io, Contentful, E2X, Fluent commerce, Frontastic, Mobify and Vue Storefront have already joined as inaugural members, and the Alliance invites like-minded companies to do the same.

The “MACH” namesake, stands for Microservices based, API-first, Cloudnative SaaS and Headless, and is inspired by the supersonic speed at which software ecosystems can better serve enterprises. The MACH Alliance is committed to helping enterprises adopt and adapt the best and most agile systems, processes and skills to turn their digital practices into business differentiators. ​

“The goal of the MACH Alliance is to drive awareness for the benefits of modern software ecosystems that provide the flexibility and openness that traditional software suites were not designed with,” says Matthew Baier, Advisory Board Member to the MACH Alliance and COO at ContentStack. “The demand for flexibility and speed has been increasing for years and the current pandemic has further escalated the urgency to adopt and provide digital solutions and experiences. The alliance will serve as an educator and advisor for organizations embracing a more modern, agile and effective digital stack and ecosystem.”​

At its debut webinar on 7 July, founding members will demonstrate what a MACH platform consists of technically and answer questions about what the landscape of MACH suppliers looks like.​
“Today, there are hundreds of proven SaaS vendors that solve specific business problems (content, commerce, personalization, etc.) much better than the basic functionality offered in suites,” says Kelly Goetsch, President of the MACH Alliance and CTO of commercetools. “Due to the near ubiquity of support for MACH principles and how modern SaaS software works, it’s easier than ever to discover, evaluate, purchase, and integrate these vendors. As needs evolve, vendors can be easily added or swapped. We as members of the MACH Alliance represent the present and future of enterprise software and services and aim to be the catalyst for even more change.” ​

“We believe in “Transform by Doing”. The MACH architecture enables us to build and run solutions that are less of a compromise to our clients”, says Auke van Urk, ​Advisory Board Member to the MACH Alliance and Chief Technology Officer at Valtech. “MACH solutions can reduce time to first value significantly and are much more adaptable to the ever evolving business needs and customer expectations.”​

“We see real pressure these days to adapt nearly every aspect of global business, and to do so faster and more efficiently than ever.  These new demands call for an expanded set of choices that are enabled by the modern architectures and capabilities brought together by the MACH Alliance,” said Elaina Shekhter, Advisory Board Member to the MACH Alliance and Chief Marketing Officer at EPAM Systems. “Our role as a product and platform engineering leader for some of the world’s top enterprises has given us a front-line view of the digital transformations made possible by the wide-spread adoption of cloud and we look forward to seeing truly novel customer experiences brought to life by these new technologies.” ​
The MACH Alliance will ensure the best-of-breed alternative is clear, visible and omnipresent, by: ​
1.Sharing technical knowledge about MACH, and why and when it is better than what a suite can offer. ​
2.Creating best practices that show organizations how to transition to a MACH architecture, as well as its products and services, leveraging case studies and peer-to-peer networking between organizations planning to make the transition with those that already have.​
3.Listing and explaining selection criteria for enterprises, such as what to ask for when RFP’ing best-of-breed tech vendors, and what criteria to use during the selection process. This information will be provided in the form of white papers, events, articles and more.​
4.Publishing technical documentation, such as architectural blueprints and other technical content, demonstrating how to integrate MACH technologies. ​ 
5.Developing and hosting MACH Alliance events and serving as a collective resource at key industry events to demonstrate and educate the industry on the benefits of adopting an open, cloud-native, API first headless architecture technology ecosystem.​