When free is not enough: The Magento Enterprise Edition

Last week, Varien and Magento announced an alternative to the community open source Magento ecommerce platform.  That alternative is Magento Enterprise Edition.

Today marks a major milestone for Varien and Magento with the release of the Magento Enterprise Edition. The product is a culmination of months of work and countless feedback from our community, partners and customers. The commercially licensed Magento Enterprise Edition software is the premium grade Magento product. It is geared towards larger companies and includes additional features, including ROI specific features, not available in our open source, Community Edition product. In addition to features, our Enterprise Edition will include SLA based support with guaranteed response times, warranties, indemnification and soon, PA-DSS certification. Learn more about the Enterprise Edition product and compare product editions.

With the launch of our Enterprise Edition, it is important to note our commitment to the open source, Community Edition product. The release of the Magento Enterprise Edition aids us by allowing us to focus on the distinct groups of Magento users, small or large, and to engage each according to their needs, and now, contribute more time and resources to the success of each. More information regarding our community and open source initiatives is detailed below.

For those that are used to getting open source Magento for "free", the starting price of $8,900 USD for the Enterprise Edition may be a little shocking.  However, it's important to note that the Enterprise edition isn't geared toward those smaller "mom and pop" online stores.  Instead the Magento Enterprise edition is intended for those larger corporations that want guarantees in the products they purchase including warranty, indemnification, and full product support via an SLA.

What else does the $8,900 or more give you that the Community Edition (without extensions) doesn't give you?  Some of the additional benefits of the Enterprise Edition over the Community Edition include:

• Advanced Administrator Roles and Permission Restriction per Site (Website and Store View)
• Logging of Administrator Actions
• Gift Certificates/Cards (Physical and Virtual)
• Customer Store Credits
• Content Staging and Merging. Support for both on-demand and scheduled merges and rollbacks of content
• Limited Catalog Access. Category View and Purchase permissions per on customer group
• Private Club Sales including Events, Invitations and Category access permissions
• Strong Data Encryption

Apparently, the introduction of the Enterprise Edition does not mean there will be less support and development for the Community Edition of Magento.  In fact since the announcement of the Enterprise Edition, version 1.3.1 of Magento Community has been released.