It's an increasingly complex world out there (as composable reaches early majority status) and what end-users need is trust in certified MACH products and services. We provide that through being open and accessible but ultimately strict and thorough in our assessment.
Many of the ISV / Enabler members of the Alliance are relatively new companies who have built their products from scratch adhering to what we now consider MACH principles. Yet, there is also a category of (potential) Alliance members who have a longer history and have/had products that were not MACH-native.
As the market matures, similar to how cloud computing rose to mainstream status, we’re now seeing MACH follow a similar trajectory, and with it, more complex admissions cases. There’s a lot in between on the MACH - Monolith spectrum! That’s why we’ve chosen to consolidate everything there is to know about our admissions process and publish a comprehensive new admissions criteria guide, adding rigor to the process and focusing on consistency and clarity for buyers.
According to Benoit Rossignol, Head of the MACH Alliance Admissions Panel, “The MACH Alliance is adapting to a maturing market and being realistic and inclusive of the reality that is out there as more vendors transition their product strategies for a composable future. MACH is expanding from front-end to back-end solutions and into new industries, touching every component of an enterprise tech stack. We need to ensure a level playing field for all assessments.”
Ensuring a level playing field means constantly evolving our criteria based on our experience of new application considerations. Bloomreach for example, who joined the MACH Alliance in 2022, are a multi-product company, but unlike larger legacy platforms, they are composable. However, their path to MACH certification wasn’t straightforward. It was their commitment to MACH principles and their vision for the future that prompted a strategy change which got them over the line.
Tjeerd Brenninkmeijer, EVP, EMEA at Bloomreach, provides some insight into the process and why achieving MACH certification was important to them.
"At Bloomreach, we firmly believe that cloud-based composable architecture represents the future of tech. The underlying MACH principles enable us to deliver faster innovation for our customers, ensure better availability, and provide businesses with the ability to rapidly expand their commerce ecosystem as their technology needs evolve. These architectural and developmental principles ultimately deliver greater value to our customers. The transparency offered by the MACH Alliance is invaluable, as it helps customers and partners make informed decisions about their future endeavors. This aligns perfectly with our goals, so obtaining MACH certification was crucial to us.
“We thoroughly reviewed every aspect of our technology to achieve MACH certification. Operating a SaaS business necessitates complete ownership of the software we provide to our customers. During our technology review, one area that required particular attention was our content management offering. Our CMS was initially a private cloud solution, also known as PaaS (platform as a service). Our team dedicated two years to rewriting this software, resulting in the birth of a new product: a MACH-compliant content management solution. The certification process was intense and took six months, involving numerous deep dives into our architecture. We take great pride in passing the test in 2022."
MACH certification will continue to provide enterprises with the added level of insurance and protection they need as the market accelerates. If you would like to learn more about our membership and certification criteria, please refer to the following resources: