Additional “Wow” Product Features
The new version allows customers to create custom products, also known as bundled products or "kitting" (making kits). For example, a customer can create and purchase a computer with user-selectable options such as case, hard drive, RAM and monitors with pricing dynamically generated. Unfortunately, store owners who have already created simple products cannot convert the existing products to bundled products; they must go back in and recreate the product as a new, bundled product. But, this is a small price to pay for such an expansive feature.
Another welcomed product feature in this release is “customer-defined product options” such as specifying text or images for monograms, engraving, and custom printing.
Most exciting is that the company unexpectedly tucked into this release support for virtual or downloadable products. Roy Rubin, President of Varien Inc., the company that developed the program, said he Initially expected to release downloadable product support "right behind 1.1." It is rare indeed to move the launch of a planned feature up, and this new feature alone will create many new converts to the program.
Other New Features Rounding out the gaggle of new additions to the program are a couple of small but nice new features; new customer attributes such as prefix/suffix (Dr., Jr.) and date of birth.
The “One-Click Upgrade” from 1.0
Rubin says the heavily-touted Magento "One-Click Upgrade" is now in place for this release, and that it will work with the public release of 1.1 as long as the relevant 1.0 code has not been modified. It is always wise, however, to make a copy of the site and install the upgrade on the copy. The company strongly recommends against installing on a live or production site, but how many store owners will listen only to the words "One-Click Upgrade"?
Industry Wait-and-See
Template companies that offer templates for many other open source e-commerce programs have taken a wait-and-see attitude towards releasing templates or skins for Magento. Likewise, many experienced open source programmers are unfamiliar with the object-oriented programming used by Magento. Slow release of programmer documentation to get programmers on board, and unfamiliarity with the Zend Framework on which the program is based, have all slowed the program's acceptance into the industry by Web developers. The company would be well-advised to speed the release of developer documentation even if it is not pretty or absolutely fleshed-out yet.
Enthusiastic Community
Still, the company has been responsive to the concerns of its users with the product it has released today, and that responsiveness to end users is refreshing in the techno-centric world of open source e-commerce. With this release, it's time for the industry biggies — osCommerce, Zen Cart and CRE Loaded — to sit up and take notice if they haven't already.
In its short four-month existence, Magento has already been nominated for a number of prestigious awards, including the O'Reilly 2008 Open Source Awards and SourceForge.net's Community Choice Awards. Magento was a finalist in SourceForge’s categories for Best Project for the Enterprise, Best New Project, Most Likely to Change the World and Most Likely to Be the Next $1B Acquisition. How many eCommerce programs can claim that, open source or not?
The bottom line: Magento is already loved and accepted by end users and the community. This new release will just create more, worldwide converts. It’s a real winner.
Kerry Watson is a consultant and author of 11 books in the OSC industry, including the latest Manual for Magento Users. Her Web site is osCommerceManuals.com.
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