If January is any indication of the year we are going to have, I have to admit I am extremely excited. After a bit of a slow month in December, 2008 opened with very strong project activity in every major category including site traffic, downloads, forum activity, and Marketplace sales. The growth of the open source community and business ecosystem continues to accelerate at a rapid pace, and I predict a hugely successful year for DotNetNuke in 2008. We did not send a community newsletter last month, so it is now my privilege to share some exciting new project developments with you.

DotNetNuke Forge

Today we are proud to announce the release of the DotNetNuke Forge, a premier destination for open source collaboration on the DotNetNuke platform. Providing unparalled access to community developed and maintained platform extensions such as Modules, Skins, and Providers, the DotNetNuke Forge will further cultivate our rich developer ecosystem through its highly accessible project directory and robust project management tools. We are proud to partner with Microsoft's CodePlex to provide access to a world class infrastructure for managing open source projects. CodePlex offers advanced tools including a robust source code repository based on Microsoft Team Foundation Server, issue tracking, discussion forums, project team management, and free hosting services for project downloads. Please make sure you bookmark this collaborative new service at http://cl.exct.net/?ju=fe2215747262077a7d1273&ls=fdea11737c6c04797c127272&m=ff011673746000&l=fe9315777063027d77&s=fe2c1671736c057d701078&jb=ffcf14&t= today.

Cambrian

Excitement is building for the next major platform release for DotNetNuke, code-named "Cambrian" ( this was first announced during my keynote at the DotNetNuke OpenForce conference last November ). Development has been progressing at a steady pace and we expect to deliver a substantial amount of new functionality in the initial release scheduled for the end of the first quarter 2008. Charles Nurse has been highly focused in recent weeks on completing the powerful new packaging and distribution system originally introduced in version 4.7. In addition, the portal and host administration area has been refactored to remove much of the restrictive legacy behavior and allow for much greater flexibility. Since extensibility has long been one of the pillars of the DotNetNuke product, these changes will provide even more opportunity for developers, designers, and systems integrators to create innovative business solutions. Although we are trying to avoid any breaking changes in this release, we highly encourage module developers and skinners to get prepared early for the new platform. To facilitate this, we will be making the Beta release of Cambrian available to all vendors who have active product listings in the DotNetNuke Marketplace, so get your products listed now to participate in this Beta offering.

DotNetNuke Marketplace

The introduction of a bi-weekly Marketplace Monitor newsletter has significantly increased the amount of activity in the DotNetNuke Marketplace. In addition, to show our deep appreciation to the highly supportive DotNetNuke customer community, we announced a 10% promotional coupon in the month of January which can be redeemed on any purchase until the 28th of February. It also goes without saying that if you are a commercial module developer or skinner and want your products to reach the broadest audience possible, you need to make sure you are represented in the DotNetNuke Marketplace.

DotNetNuke Support

The fact that open source projects make their source code available to everybody does not make everybody an expert. The fact that the open source software is offered for free doesn't mean that commercial services are irrelevant. In fact, open source software requires a dependable company that will stand behind its software and provide consumer confidence. Solutions built on open source software, like any software, need Support staff who understand the internals of the software and have a wealth of experience using it. DotNetNuke Corporation provides support for the DotNetNuke framework as no other company can, as we are the original creators and maintainers of DotNetNuke. Announced late in 2007, the DotNetNuke Subscription program provides business customers with responsive, high-quality, consistent and reasonably-priced technical support for the DotNetNuke platform.

OpenForce

Based on the success of our two inaugural OpenForce developer conferences in 2007, we are pleased to announce that we will again be hosting major developer conferences in both North America and Europe in the fall of 2008. So mark your calendars and make room in your budgets. A call for speakers will go out shortly and stay tuned for an overhaul of the OpenForce website as we begin to ramp up our marketing efforts.

With continued focus on the balance between the vibrant open source community and thriving business ecosystem, I am really looking forward to leveraging our momentum to produce a year of significant growth in the DotNetNuke project.
 

Shaun Walker, President/Chief Architect
DotNetNuke Corporation

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