New Adobe Program Aims to Benefit Magento Partners and Developers in Unprecedented Times

As COVID-19 reverberates around the world, every organization finds itself dealing with a new normal, and will continue to do so even after the pathogen is under control. Without a doubt, the impact on technology vendors, the partners, and their mutual customers will be substantial.

In some cases, the interruption in customer engagements has idled technical and development teams. This short-term scenario is unavoidable. While certain organizations are doubling down on technology investments during the economic slowdown, others have put projects on hold to conserve cash.

Now Adobe has created an innovative new program for its Magento Solution Partners that have developer resources on the bench as a result of customer slowdowns—a program that could help its partners hold on to these valuable engineering talents and avoid layoffs.

Adobe is supporting its partners financially by utilizing these idle developer resources to accelerate the delivery of new features that are currently on the Magento product road map. Specifically, Adobe will provide capital to partners whose developers support these projects. It’s a classic “win-win-win.” Developers will continue working, partners will be better able to withstand the downturn, and customers will see new features more quickly. Joint development is a hallmark of the platform. Magento is an open-source solution, and partners contributed nearly half of the code in the Magento Community Engineering Program in 2019.

Extending the Magento Commerce Platform

The program will provide qualified Solution Partners with funding to redeploy skilled Magento development and solution resources to contribute to the Magento Community Engineering Program. These developers are already expert in Magento and will move their focus to projects and initiatives that are already on the road map. This initiative also enables partners to plan for recovery and rapidly scale back normal operations once customer demand picks up in the future.

Of the roughly 400 Magento partners, the program will focus on those that are primarily small to mid-sized firms and don’t have easy access to capital.

The program will target different aspects of the Magento platform, including new functionality, feature updates, tests, and documentation. The current focus of the Community Engineering Program includes extending GraphQL, supporting Progressive Web Apps, integrating between Magento and other Adobe applications, and extending some of the B2B capabilities in Magento.

It all amounts to a highly innovative and forward-thinking approach to a suddenly changed business climate. Competent technical and development professionals aren’t easy to find, and helping partners retain them will have substantial long-term benefit.

Magento Solution Partners that are enrolled in the Adobe Solution Partner Program can find out about the overall program, criteria for eligibility, and how to apply by logging into their Magento Solution Partner Portal.