The new product, CivicCMS, will actually be the company’s second CMS. It already offered its own system, called CivicEngage. Going forward, it expects to sell CivicEngage more to its larger customers and CivicCMS to smaller ones.
“Over the past 20 years working with local governments, we have learned that the technology needs of smaller municipalities vary greatly from large cities and counties both from an end user and an administrative perspective,” said CivicPlus CEO Brian Rempe in a press release. “By adding a dedicated solution that allows us to service a wider spectrum of municipalities, we will be better able to offer scalable solutions to all local governments. It will also allow us to continue evolving our CivicEngage CMS to fit the needs of larger cities and counties.”
The new CMS, which it brought into the fold by way of acquiring the Massachusetts-based company Virtual Towns & Schools, is based on the open-source Drupal platform. According to the press release, VTS has more than 600 clients, many of them in the Northeastern U.S. As its name suggests, it serves local government as well as school districts.
CivicPlus has been on something of an acquisition spree lately. In January 2017 it acquired Rec1, using its software to launch a parks and recreation product. Then in October that year it bought up BoardSync and turned its technology into an agenda and meeting management product.
Editor's note: The headline of this article was adjusted to avoid confusion about VTS' open source status.
