It’s about one week old as of publishing but this acquisition has made a bit of noise in the WordPress community, with a lot of people comparing this acquisition to one’s made by GoDaddy.

Over at TechRadar, One.com owner snaps up WordPress experts WP Media: “While group.ONE hopes to extend the use of WP Media’s WordPress performance optimization tools and services to its users, it notes that WP Media will continue to operate as an independent brand and all its employees will continue with the company.”

There always seems to be an emotional burst when independent firms are acquired by much larger independent firms. See what I did there. The crux of the response, at the end of the day, is a perception of how size can change culture. And that does happen. Also what happens is that smaller independents have challenges that can often cause them not to survive. Sometimes direct competition from the big ones, but in many cases the stresses of running the business (cash flow, HR, legal, etc. etc.) can very much get in the way of doing things well. I’m not saying this is the case with WP Media but have certainly seen where acquisitions have freed companies to expand on visions that have been put on hold to get through the day-to-day.

I’m always going to cheer for acquisitions and hope they are successful for all those involved. I do hope that they are being done as part of growth strategies, and not just ripping out assets.