I recently added Frog CMS and Socialtext to CMS Report's CMS Focus page.  CMS Focus is a list of the top 30 Web applications that represent what I feel are the Web applications of today and tomorrow.  In a world where niche CMS news sites try to cover it all for their readers (more power to them), I feel one of the strengths of CMSReport.com is limiting our focus on a certain number of CMS.  The CMS on this list are applications I recommend site owners first look at before moving into the deep waters of content management and social software.

As I mentioned late last year, my latest obsession is the implementation and use of CMS and social software in the enterprise.  For many organizations it can be more challenging to implement content management and collaboration solutions on their own Intranet than it is for the Web.  Wanting to continue expanding our topics on Enterprise 2.0 is why I've put Socialtext on the list.  Frankly, I'm learning about Socialtext just as much as everyone.  Instead of putting Socialtext into CMS Focus, I did consider Opentext and even Ektron.  Socialtext made the list because they seemed to be more transparent with news about their product.  My advice to companies and their Web sites...keep those RRS feeds updated and accessible.

osCommerce announced that their osCommerce Online Merchant v3.0 Alpha 5 will be made available on March 11th.  They've also retooled the schedule for additional releases of this well known shopping cart.

osCommerce Online Merchant v3.0 Alpha 5 was scheduled for release by the end of February and has been postponed to ensure the quality of the release. It will now be released on Wednesday the 11th of March. This release also brings in a new roadmap and release strategy for the v3.x series.

Our focus has changed with this release from implementing additional features into the core to concentrating on the framework and to add the features to future releases. This allows v3.0 to be released sooner with a stable framework, and allows a much faster release cycle for new features compared to the previous “release every 6 months” release strategy.

New features that can be expected in the new release of osCommerce since Alpha 4 was made available include:

• Product Attributes Implementation
• Dynamic Table Listings (Administration Tool)
• Live Search (Administration Tool)
• Administration Tool sections now self-contained Applications
• Error Logging; both PHP and MySQL errors and warnings now logged (forced runtime usage of PHP E_ALL and MySQL STRICT_ALL_TABLES)
• Stabilized Framework
• Usage of JSON for RPC calls
• Inclusion of jQuery v1.3.2 and jQuery UI v1.6rc6

Additional information about the version 3.0 of the ecommerce platform can found at the osCommerce blog.

Not long ago, I expressed doubts whether osCommerce has a future.  While osCommerce is widely used by thousands of sites, and incidentally the only shopping cart I've ever put into production, its development cycle has been painfully slow for many of its open source contributors and users.  As I've said before, when the 3.0 version of osCommerce is released I find it unlikely that the new osCommerce will have many of the Web 2.0 features that the new breed of
shopping carts currently have now.  I have personal doubts that osCommerce's future is as bright as its past has been.

Harald Ponce de Leon recently wrote at osCommerce.com an article that would counter my opinion and the opinions of naysayers such as me.

The osCommerce community were extremely busy throughout 2008 with
over 700 new add-ons and features being made available for osCommerce
Online Merchant v2.2. That includes over 2,500 updates made by over
1,200 community members in 2008 alone!

There are currently over 5,200 add-ons for osCommerce Online Merchant made available for free by the osCommerce community!

Probably more exciting is Harald's announcement that the new core for osCommerce 3.0 will be ready next month.

2008 has been a great year for osCommerce Online Merchant v2.2 and look
forward to making 2009 an even better year with osCommerce Online
Merchant v3.0, with a production-ready release of the new core engine
being made in February.

So since there is a chance that osCommerce will prove me wrong with the 3.0 version is released, osCommerce will remain in my top 30 CMS list for a little longer.  If osCommerce is better than I expected it to be it will remain under focus here at CMS Report.  However, if it disappoints then osCommerce may just have to be moved into our Hall of Fame.

There it was in front of my eyes.  The headline in osCommerce's forum read, "Is OsC Dead?, Discussion of the Progress of OsC" [link removed by osCommerce folks?].  Despite how some may read the title, the thread isn't about bashing osCommerce.  Instead, it is about users and community members concerned and even fearful of the slow pace of new development for osCommerce.  Despite all the talk about osCommerce 3.0, it has been a year and a half since OsC 3 Alpha 4 was released with the roadmap showing that Alpha 5 and 6 are still under development.  How can one not ask if the future of osCommerce is in jeopardy?

As mentioned at the osCommerce forum, Kerry Watson also has an article out about the new breed of open source shopping carts.  The article starts off with a that was then, this is now statement regarding shopping carts.

While the Big Three of the old guard — osCommerce, Zen Cart, and CRE Loaded — continue to duke it out among themselves, new-generation open source commerce projects have begun to spring up with new ideas and new ways of thinking. Most noteworthy of the new crop are France-based Prestashop and US-based programs Ubercart and Magento.

These fresh Web 2.0-style carts are mature and production-ready contenders, and all are at or beyond version 1.0 in their production cycle. These carts are equal or superior to many commercial e-commerce programs, and are available for free under the GNU or OSL 3.0 Public License. We've previously reviewed Magento, so this column will focus on the other two next-generation carts: PrestaShop and Ubercart.

Personally, I've been working on recommending a friend to upgrade his osCommerce site to either Magento or Drupal's Ubercart.  Even when the 3.0 version of osCommerce is released, it will likely still not have many of the Web 2.0 features that the new breed of shopping carts currently have now.  It's not that I think osCommerce is dead, but I do think that osCommerce has stopped evolving.  Good open source projects never die, they just fade away.

The release of Ubercart 1.0 was announced earlier today.  Ubercart is an open source e-commerce package (shopping cart) that fully integrates your online store with the open source CMS, Drupal.  We've been watching Ubercart for some time and like some of the look-and-feel it borrows from osCommerce.

Some of the features in Ubercart 1.0 as reported by their shopping cart's Website include:

• Configurable product catalog includes catalog pages and a block to display product categories.
• Flexible product creation system. Create normal products by default. Add fields to store additional product information using Drupal's CCK system.
• Flexible product attributes system. Create user selectable attributes for your products that modify the price, SKU/model, and/or weight of items as the customer adds them to his or her cart. Set default attribute/option sets for each product class to easily create many similar products.

I know I'm a week behind about this, but I just came across the link via Gadgetopia:  Open-source PHP applications that changed the world.  The CMS related applications that were determined world changers are listed below.

• PHP-Nuke - 1999
• eZ Publish - 2000
• osCommerce - 2000
• phpBB - 2000
• Gallery - 2001
• Drupal - 2001
• MediaWiki - 2002
• WordPress - 2003
• Joomla! - 2005
• Magento eCommerce - 2007

When you split the list into three sections, you get the feeling that PHP-Nuke, ezPublish, and osCommerce have been around for a very long time.  More importantly, you begin to think that it is time for Gallery, Drupal, and MediaWiki to either be seen as mature applications or for those applications to finally grow up.

Webdistortion, a web design studio in Northern Ireland, recently reviewed nine different e-commerce platforms. All nine platforms reviewed were open source software packages.

With e-commerce webdesign really starting to take off, its never been more important to choose a platform which suits you as a developer (i.e. one that you can support) and one that will provide your clients with the features that they need to run a successful online shop.

There are a number of ways of getting a shop online, and we’ve focused primarily on open source e-commerce platforms here.

Those nine e-commerce platforms under review include: osCommerce, ZenCart, VirtueMart (Joomla!/Mambo), Magento, DashCommerce, CubeCart, X-Cart, LiteCommerce, and Shopify. If you're looking for a brief and consolidated review of open source shopping carts, then the Webdistortion reivew is a nice place for you to visit.

For those curious, I found this story via DZone.

Last week marked the official release of Magento 1.0, an open source ecommerce platform. Magento has been on my radar scope for some time thanks to those who have left comments about it here. Since, I likely will have need of a good shopping cart this year for a planned project, I've decided to put some focus on Magento. I will be removing Mambo from my top 30 "CMS Focus" list to make room for Magento. My apologies to Mambo fans.

Magento isn't just a "shopping cart" but attempts to also be an "ecommerce platform". Magento recognizes that it needs to improve and introduce additional features, but for a 1.0 version the variety and quantity of features are impressive. Some of Magento's well rounded features include analytics and reports, RSS feeds, site and content management tools, search engine optimization, promotion tools, and multiple theming.

The aim of this article is not to poke holes, or say ‘vBulletin sucks’, but to provide constructive criticism of a successful product, proving that vBulletin is not always the best choice. In places the article compares vBulletin to Drupal, this is the platform The Webmaster Forums will be switching to and represents many of the things vBulletin should—in our humble opinion—aspire to.

Now this was a interesting. A well written article on why one site is switching over to use Drupal's built in forum rather then continue to use vbulletin.

One of the things I like about browsing the Web for posts on various CMS topics is that they always seem to show up on the Web when when I need them the most.  For example, I'm starting to consider whether I'll continue to use osCommerce for some sites that I manage.  While the yet to be released osCommerce 3.0 will likely be an option next year, I'm open to other possibilities.  What I would like to see is a shopping cart that integrates well with a full CMS.  In the past, I've found Joomla's Virtuemart extension and Drupal's e-Commerce module to fall just short of the client's needs so I've stuck with pure shopping carts such as osCommerce.  Yet, I still keep on hoping for better open source options.

A new shopping cart module for Drupal, Ubercart, is hot under development and attempts to address the short-comings of the Drupal e-Commerce module.  Ubercart's roots comes from people like you and me who wouldn't mind moving the client from osCommerce over to Drupal.  In fact, some of the user interface in Ubercart is very similar to that found in osCommerce (check screenshots), which is a good thing for clients to experience during a migration from one application to the next.  Ubercart is still under alpha development, but if you've followed osCommerce's long software development cycle the terms alpha, beta, and release candidate are not terms that will scare you off from taking a look at Ubercart.

• Administration Tool access levels (about time)
  
• Administrator Log
  
• Administration Tool batch action capabilities

I'm finally down to just the finishing touches on that osCommerce project I mentioned about last month. The site is Dakota Angler, a fishing bait and tackle store, that finally is ready to sell their goods online.

What made the project challenging was that it already had a presence on the Web providing fishing reports, images of big catches by the customers, and an active forum. Having to integrate a new shopping cart around the old site in a way the client was comfortable took some effort. He wanted the online store, but he didn't want to change the existing site so much that he lost his current users or made it difficult for his employees to learn "everything new". There are some practical business decisions as to why you don't want to fancy up a "bait store" too much for the customers.

Just as challenging to work with was the choice of software for the online store, osCommerce. As I've mentioned before, I'm just a little surprised with how much work was required in hacking the core. In osCommerce, I found that the "boxes" and much of the other non-product content are stored in "flat files" and not the database.