07 June 2011, 12:26

eBay agrees to acquire Magento

ebay In an unsurprising move, eBay Inc. has agreed to acquire e-commerce platform specialist Magento, formerly known as Varien. Magento Inc is the creator of the open source e-commerce platform Magento. The news of the acquisition comes just months after Magento confirmed that eBay had invested $22.5 million into the company in March 2010, taking a 49 per cent stake. The eCommerce system will be at the heart of eBay's upcoming X.Commerce platform, serving as the foundation for the joint eBay, PayPal and Magento developer community.

Magento's more than 290 employees will keep their jobs after the acquisition is completed in the third quarter of this year. According to an FAQ on the acquisition PDF , eBay will continue to support the Magento eCommerce platform; alongside this, management will, in the course of the next year, start integrating the first systems and processes into the eBay platform as part of the future development of X.Commerce under the direction of Matthew Mengerink. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.