Gold Partner

The team at byte5 has been a certified gold partner for the open source CMS Umbraco - and hence has worked closely together with the professionals in the Umbraco HQ in Odense, Denmark - since 2011. Two years later the developers from Frankfurt were even appointed as German ambassadors for the open source system by its founder Niels Hartvig. But what does this mean for our work here at byte5?

It was on October 31st, 2011 when byte5 founder Christian Wendler wrote an e-mail to Umbraco chief developer Niels Hartvig, asking to be admitted to the group of gold partners. At this time Wendler and his team have worked with Umbraco for about two years. The number of projects the Danish open source CMS is used for is growing larger and larger. Connected to the wish of becoming gold partner is the idea of initiating a German-speaking Umbraco Festival, that was about to premier just a few months after our partnership began. The closer byte5 and Umbraco would be working together on this idea, the better.   

But there were also various other reasons to commence this partnership. As one of 50 gold partners worldwide – and the only one in the German-speaking area – we make a financial contribution to the open source project once a year and therefore are listed as a regional expert on Umbraco's partners site. Additionally we have opportunities to access certain Umbraco products and support guarantees that regularly have to be paid for. 

In the summer of 2013 chief Unicorn Niels Hartvig contacted us again with a very special offer: he asked whether we wanted to start training and informing Umbracians in the German-speaking regions and thus become a kind of "ambassador for the orange U". Imaginably, our euphoria for the friendliest CMS in the world made our decision quite easy. 

What hasn't come up over the last years was any kind of regret for writing that particular e-mail. byte5 has become the largest German-speaking expert team for Umbraco, as well as market leader for Umbraco development in our area. With many news in the Umbraco world our euphoria has grown steadily and our wish of remaining part of the group of gold partners is clearer than ever. There is, however, one question going along with that: What do you get for a gift once the golden gold partnership is around the corner?

By the way: At CeBit 2016 byte5 was awarded finalist for the Innovation Prize IT / Category CMS. In a interview (in German) that was published after the award ceremony, Christian Wendler revealed what makes Umbraco so special for him.