Squiz

Squiz is an open source software services company, founded in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia in 1998. The company produces the enterprise content management system (CMS), Squiz Matrix (née MySource Matrix).^[1]

It has offices in Sydney (head office), Canberra, Melbourne, Hobart, Brisbane, Adelaide, Edinburgh, Wellington, London, New York and Szczecin (Poland).^[2] The research and development centre, called Squiz Labs,^[3] is in Parramatta.

The company's main product is the Squiz Suite, a web management platform which incorporates a content management system (CMS), search, web analytics and integration tools. The company also provides consulting, design, development, implementation, training and support services.

Company background

The company provides an open-source CMS system, Squiz Matrix, along with paid services, cloud hosting and support for the "Squiz Suite" of products.

Product development focuses primarily on Squiz Matrix, with support from the Matrix developer community. Squiz Matrix is written in PHP and uses the PostgreSQL or Oracle databases. Application warranties are also provided by Squiz.^[4]

In 2007 Squiz re-licensed its MySource Matrix tool under the GNU General Public License as open source software in response to criticism of their original licence.^[5]

Prior to MySource Matrix Squiz developed, launched and supported MySource Classic under a general open source licence. MySource Classic was a page-based tool for building and managing online projects including websites and intranets.^[6]

In 2008 the company announced global revenues of US $15 million.^[7] Squiz has experienced strong year-on-year growth since, with global revenues of approximately US $43 million in 2013/14.

In July 2009 Squiz acquired the search company Funnelback^[8] Funnelback was an Australian search firm spun off from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).^[9]

In November 2010, the company released the "Squiz Suite"^[10] which comprises Squiz Matrix, Squiz CMS, Squiz Analytics and Squiz Search.

In October 2011, Squiz released Roadmap, a social prioritisation system designed to allow its users to collaborate on the reporting, discussion and development of issues.^[11]

In September 2013, Squiz expanded into the US, opening an office at 136 Madison Avenue, New York.^[12]

Squiz is privately held, and has grown organically by reinvesting revenue - without venture capital. Squiz has been profitable every year since its inception in 1998.

Products

The "Squiz Suite" consists of the following products, each available as a free download:

• Squiz Matrix - enterprise content management system recognized by industry analysts ^{[13] [14]}

• an enterprise level content management system; allows organizations to create, edit, manage, and publish Web-based content. Claims to be designed in a way that content authors need little or no knowledge of HTML to create and publish information to websites.

• includes WYSIWYG editor with table creation functionality.
• inbuilt site search functionality.
• can be integrated with Funnelback Search (also company's product) allowing search results to be refined by type or topic and organised in clusters.

• Squiz Analytics - enterprise web analytics solution that presents data to analyse a website’s customer experience and return on investment.

• uses industry standard Google analytics data from multiple accounts
• supports content optimisation with A/B testing
• goals creation
• includes "recommendations engine" for strategies for improving site performance relative to goals

• Squiz Roadmap - user engagement and concept incubation platform to source ideas from inside an organisation's existing network.

• SaaS/cloud-based service
• LDAP user integration
• supports IE | Firefox | Chrome
• functional on Safari for: OS X | iPad | iPhone

Examples

These are the examples of websites running Squiz Matrix (Matrix websites show "Running Squiz Matrix" in the html source, unless this option is disabled ^[15]):

• Reed Elsevier
• University of New England
• Credit Union Australia
• Lexis Nexis France
• Bendigo Bank
• The Victoria and Albert Museum
• Oxford University
• Arrow Energy
• University of Newcastle
• Leighton Holdings
• IOOF Financial Services
• Pacific Union College
• Canberra Chief Minister Directorate

References