WordPress, or more accurately, the parent company of WordPress, Automattic, is acquiring WooThemes. The deal, which is estimated to be for more than $30 Million will help to grow Automattic significantly. It will also help them to enter into the world of e-commerce. WooThemes is one of the most popular maker of WordPress themes, many of which are premium themes that have price tags going up into the hundreds of dollars.
In addition, WooThemes is the maker of WooCommerce, which is a very popular e-commerce platform. According to the statistics released, WooCommerce is used on nearly 25% of all websites that have eCommerce on them.
The purchase will be seen as a surprise to many since Automattic has not previously offered these types of services. It does give them a well established income stream; however, that obviously compliments their existing services.
When the acquisition is done, it will boost the company up over 400 employees worldwide.
WordPress has not commented on what, if any, changes will result from this acquisition. Many people think that they may begin offering WooThemes with WordPress more often or even incorporate a scaled down version of WooCommerce with WordPress to try to encourage more people to upgrade from there.
Whatever the case, this is certainly big news for anyone on the WordPress platform. You can see the official announcement of this acquisition HERE.
