Adobe has announced that Microsoft-Accenture joint venture Avanade will build a practice to connect Adobe Experience Manager and Campaign with Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Azure. The deal illustrates the importance of such integration and how hard it is. Adobe, Microsoft and Accenture are all partners in the Open Database Initiative but apparently have decided that direct Adobe-Microsoft integrations can’t wait for ODI to be ready.
Some days this newsletter just writes itself. First we have a nice funding announcement from a CDP: a $50 million Series C for Amperity. It brings their total raise to $78 million.
Marketers hoping to escape the grip of Facebook and other walled gardens are eyeing direct-to-consumer business models. In the finest “sell shovels to gold miners” tradition, entrepreneurs are building services to help. One entrant is The DTX Company, which just announced Unbox, a platform for brands to reach consumers through events, TV, and other channels that are anything-but-Amazon, Google, and Facebook. They’ll use plenty of data to match the right channels to the right people.
Procrastinators of the world can throw a party whenever they get around to it: Google has once more pushed back complete third-party cookie deprecation. The new target is “early next year.” Reasons for the delay include concerns expressed by U.K. data regulator Information Commissioner’s Office, an ongoing inquiry by the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority, and widespread discontent in the advertising ecosystem.