History

Since the foundation of e-Spirit in 1999 we have seen a successful company development with continuous growth. Here you find some of the milestones on our way from a Dortmund/Germany based Start-up to an international technology leader in Web Content Management.

The Development of e-Spirit

2011

e-Spirit introduces the FirstSpirit™ AppCenter. It supports the quick and easy interface integration of any (web) application into the CMS, and is unparalleled in the market.

With its recently established subsidiary e-Spirit Inc., e-Spirit is opening its first US branch in Boston in September. The company is further pushing the establishment and expansion of the North American partner network, meeting the increasing demand for FirstSpirit™ in the USA and Canada.

2010

Within the new minor versions of FirstSpirit™ 4.2 e-Spirit introduces release updates with new features specially designed for an optimum ease-of use and to make editing work more convenient: FirstSpirit™ 4.2R2 with support for Internet Explorer in the integrated preview has been launched in March. The roll-out phase for 4.2R4 started in October - higlight of this release is the Office Integration directly into the CMS workspace.

In this fiscal year, e-Spirit wins 30 new customers from a wide range of industries and continues expanding their international market position. Gruner + Jahr, Friendscout24, Rittal, the Government of the Netherlands, Hamburg Süd, Olympus, WAGO Kontakttechnik, Rational, Deutsche Messe AG, the Canton of Aargau and Degussa Bank are among the organizations now counting on FirstSpirit™ as the central platform for their web strategy.

2009

In its anniversary year 2009, e-Spirit leap-frogs the 70 employee mark. A new branch is opened in Vienna - the Austrian office is already the ninth e-Spirit location in Europe.

The new FirstSpirit™ Version 4.2 is launched in November. The interface concepts of the CMS have been modernized and usability has been optimized with a range of innovative developments and new functionalities, including an integrated WYSIWYG-preview, with Content Highlighting, extended Drag&Drop support and Multi-Tabbing, enabling editors to work in several elements opened next to each other.

2007

e-Spirit now has 53 employees and opens further offices in Hamburg and Cologne. e-Spirit also has its own office in Switzerland. A branch is opened in London and in the same year, the first major client in Great Britain is acquired with speedo.com.

The introduction of revision-based data storage in FirstSpirit™ 4 allows companies to restore information from the past at any time at the touch of a button. The architecture has bulk data stability and is optimized for speed. Projects with more than 100,000 changes per day are realized on the basis of FirstSpirit™ 4.

2004

e-Spirit now has 30 employees and offices in Dortmund, Frankfurt and Munich.

The first version of FirstSpirit™ with a graphic editor for database schemata appears with Version 3. FirstSpirit™ is thus increasingly positioning itself as a content integration platform. With the help of this platform, content from all kinds of different and distributed sources can be used by our customers and then be published via multiple output channels. The possibility of directly supporting all major databases and yet at the same time being architecture-independent, provides further advantages for our clients. In addition, a graphic interface is produced for designing workflows. As a result, employees in our clients' specialist departments can independently model and control workflows without support from their IT departments.

Performance and availability requirements increase sharply with the importance of the world wide web. As a communication channel with major economic significance, the internet becomes an important part of companies' communication strategy. To support this development, FirstSpirit™ Version 3.1 enables the high-availability of web sites as a new function. Further, with this version it is possible to efficiently manage the content of web sites and to enable company-wide reuse, even beyond project boundaries.

2002

e-Spirit realises at an early date that the requirements of large enterprises are substantially different from those of smaller clients and resolutely aims the vision of FirstSpirit™ at these high-end requirements of the key account segment. This was followed by the successful acquisition of several customers from this high-end segment.

The first browser integration is added with Version 2. This allows customers such as EADS to use a WebClient alongside the JavaClient. e-Spirit establishes a two-client strategy, as it assumes that the infrastructure provided by a browser will not match the possibilities of a native client within the next ten years.

2000

Still with the legal form of a "GmbH" (plc), e-Spirit reaches its first important milestone with FirstSpirit™ 1.0. The acquisition of further customers enabled the firm to employ additional staff and to further intensify product development. A long-term vision for the product is developed on the basis of Version 1.0.

1999

e-Spirit is started up by former employees of the Fraunhofer Institut für Software- und Systemtechnik (FhG ISST) in collaboration with the IT service provider adesso in Dortmund, Germany.

With 16 employees, e-Spirit starts developing a content management product. Even at this early date, the product development is financed out of the firm's first successful client projects. This early project experience, combined with the knowledge acquired during the Fraunhofer time, form the basis of the FirstSpirit™ product's success.