Are Smart Companies Now Supporting Several CMS Platforms?

Hey there Steve,
I would have to agree that diversification is a key component to the success of any business. However, the challenge lies in maintaining focus and being an expert across several platforms (not very easy to do).

Depending on the size of the team, I would suggest that at least one person is out there learning and keeping up with the latest trends so that there are potential options should the climate change. This is easier said than done and is just one of the focal points for businesses being flexible.

Agree completely w/ Sam. Also, 2.5 years ago when we started Steve, things looked very bright for Joomla and I think they are looking even better at this moment.

Diversification has led to new avenues of revenue for our company. We have moved from being a Joomla-only integrator to also doing other CMS (eZ Publish), EC (VirtueMart and Magento), and CRM (Info@Hand)packages. It has enabled us to expand services to existing clients and also play in the Enterprise market, where things like proprietary licenses and having a company behind the product development are important. We are now more of an Open Source software integrator. One benefit of working with a commercial vendor (like eZ, Long Reach and Varien) is they have partner programs that give support and leads.

The problem with extension developers is that they either should maintain 2+ different versions or not using the full power of any of the CMSs.
Community Builder is an excellent example of extension really falling down due to the willingness to support multiply platforms. This also slows the development and release cycles (i.e. new features requested by current customers).

Supporting other CMS / applications is important from a client-service point of view as well. Joomla does just about everything...or you can make it do everything. However, that doesn't always mean it should be used.

Another issue with the client model is being careful not to base your entire business on an application, such as the Joomla CMS. My company does lots of Joomla sites but if we had to use something else or build our own, it's completely doable as well. If a client comes to us and says "We need a Wordpress blog with XYZ customization into XYZ database" and we don't know anything about it (WP)...we're losing business.

I think maybe the 'limitation' to extension developers having difficulty moving over to other platforms is because they are so used to one framework, one way of thinking, that it's hard to adapt their workflow. At the end of the day, it's all still PHP, coding, programming, etc. So being able to port extensions over shouldn't be that difficult if they're used to other ways of thinking.

It's a good practice to do a small site in something like CodeIgniter, CakePHP, Symphony, etc. everyonce in a while to see how other people do it.

A good coding team will help a company move in any direction; however, I agree with all the points above, it is tough to be an expert in all of them, but you should be able to work in any of them.

Diversification is indeed an emerging trend and one I expect to continue. It's a logical result of the open source business model more in particular the absense of vendor lock-in.

While it's indeed easier for template designers or solution integrators to diversify it's alot harder for extensions developers due to the radical different nature of CMS core technologies and API's. Take Joomla and Drupal, one has a OO Framework the other a purely procedural API.

At Nooku we recognise this problem and our new Nooku Framework is a first step in trying to resolve this.

The Nooku Framework is designed to run stand-alone and allow extension developers to build portable extensions.

We envision that with the help of our framework extension developers will be able to build portable extensions for Joomla, Drupal, SilverStripe and others ...

I think most of the developers are searching new solutions since from now on it's 100% sure you wont see major extensions for Joomla, due to the new licensing terms. Joomla will benefit only from very small components in ther JED directory which will make it even more harder for the average user to find there something usefull. No major developer will publish proper extensions for Joomla, since they are able to keep their publisher rights on it.
Since Joomla is now like a patient that catched a incurable sickness, of course developers will diversify to other platforms.

Hi,
Thanks for mentioning us. Just one correction: we at joomlajunkie work on Prothemer.com, not the website mentioned in your post.
Cheers,
Tess

Great post - and an interesting subject. I've seen this done in the smartphone software area, where several of the most successful companies have made solutions for different platforms. One example is MarkSpace (http://www.markspace.com/). They provide their Missing Sync product for several platforms.

When it comes to community and volunteerism, I think people are even more eager to contribute and keep a good network going during a recession.

Hi,
Can you please correct the post. iTemplater is not related at all to JoomlaJunkie.

Cheers,
Anthony

Joomla is best Open source CMS, it's growing repeatedly when we started developing cms using joomla before 2 year from now the picture is different.

Thank you very much for the excellent and useful subject. Al??veri?