Joomla ready for large critical enterprise e-commerce application(s)?

Joomla ready for large critical enterprise e-commerce application(s)?

am 03.09.2007 21:43:50 von Dawson

A client of ours with a large ecommerce shop is looking at moving to
Joomla...

The question is:

Is Joomla ready for large critical enterprise e-commerce
application(s), with white-labelling and all the features, stability
and security you would expect to come with it?

Can you point me to a case-study/url/source(s) for your opinion.

Thank you for your time in advance.

Re: Joomla ready for large critical enterprise e-commerce application(s)?

am 03.09.2007 22:02:43 von luiheidsgoeroe

On Mon, 03 Sep 2007 21:43:50 +0200, Dawson wrote:

> A client of ours with a large ecommerce shop is looking at moving to
> Joomla...
>
> The question is:
>
> Is Joomla ready for large critical enterprise e-commerce
> application(s), with white-labelling and all the features, stability
> and security you would expect to come with it?
>
> Can you point me to a case-study/url/source(s) for your opinion.

Ask in a Joomla group, allthough they might be biased...

For 'a large critical enterprise e-commerce application', I would never
take a package like it though, I'd write my own, knowing all ins and outs
and above all streamlining it. It's a heavy investment, but usually one
that pays off.
--
Rik Wasmus

Re: Joomla ready for large critical enterprise e-commerce application(s)?

am 03.09.2007 22:07:21 von Dawson

On 3 Sep, 21:02, "Rik Wasmus" wrote:
> On Mon, 03 Sep 2007 21:43:50 +0200, Dawson wrote:
> > A client of ours with a large ecommerce shop is looking at moving to
> > Joomla...
>
> > The question is:
>
> > Is Joomla ready for large critical enterprise e-commerce
> > application(s), with white-labelling and all the features, stability
> > and security you would expect to come with it?
>
> > Can you point me to a case-study/url/source(s) for your opinion.
>
> Ask in a Joomla group, allthough they might be biased...
>
> For 'a large critical enterprise e-commerce application', I would never
> take a package like it though, I'd write my own, knowing all ins and outs
> and above all streamlining it. It's a heavy investment, but usually one
> that pays off.
> --
> Rik Wasmus

Thank you for your response, I only found one joomla group and it's
for developer discussion, I don't really want to post this there,
after reading the threads.

I found your reply useful and it's of the same opinion as mine,
however, I'm fighting against an agency who disagree, so, I need to
find sources or a case study to prove why Joomla is not up to the job
of an enterprise application.

Re: Joomla ready for large critical enterprise e-commerce application(s)?

am 03.09.2007 22:16:58 von Bucky Kaufman

Dawson wrote:
> A client of ours with a large ecommerce shop is looking at moving to
> Joomla...
>
> The question is:
>
> Is Joomla ready for large critical enterprise e-commerce
> application(s), with white-labelling and all the features, stability
> and security you would expect to come with it?
>
> Can you point me to a case-study/url/source(s) for your opinion.

Joomla's not very different from any other framework out there - it's
secure, it's manageable, it's sleek. You likely won't find any case
studies to contradict that claim.

Like any other framework, Joomla is great for folks who don't have the
resources to create their own framework - like small businesses and
individuals.

But if you're working within a large enterprise where you already have
an IT system in place, you'll have to massage the heck out of a
pre-built framework in order to get it to jibe with the way you do
business. Beyond that, you'll find yourself working around features in
a shrink-wrapped app when they don't jibe with the way you do business.

In my opinion, a large ecommerce shop would be better off creating their
own framework.

My experience at NorTel provides anecdotal support for that. I worked
on a team of about 60 ASP and *nix programmers who were supposed to
customize a third-party framework (I forget the name of it) to be used
by all the departments within NorTel.

After 6 months, they finally decided that customizing the framework they
bought into was just not possible. They fired all but three of us and
those three built a framework for them within a couple of months - one
that they could bend to conform to the business, rather than t'other way
'round.

Re: Joomla ready for large critical enterprise e-commerce application(s)?

am 03.09.2007 22:29:40 von Dawson

On 3 Sep, 21:16, Sanders Kaufman wrote:
> Dawson wrote:
> > A client of ours with a large ecommerce shop is looking at moving to
> > Joomla...
>
> > The question is:
>
> > Is Joomla ready for large critical enterprise e-commerce
> > application(s), with white-labelling and all the features, stability
> > and security you would expect to come with it?
>
> > Can you point me to a case-study/url/source(s) for your opinion.
>
> Joomla's not very different from any other framework out there - it's
> secure, it's manageable, it's sleek. You likely won't find any case
> studies to contradict that claim.
>
> Like any other framework, Joomla is great for folks who don't have the
> resources to create their own framework - like small businesses and
> individuals.
>
> But if you're working within a large enterprise where you already have
> an IT system in place, you'll have to massage the heck out of a
> pre-built framework in order to get it to jibe with the way you do
> business. Beyond that, you'll find yourself working around features in
> a shrink-wrapped app when they don't jibe with the way you do business.
>
> In my opinion, a large ecommerce shop would be better off creating their
> own framework.
>
> My experience at NorTel provides anecdotal support for that. I worked
> on a team of about 60 ASP and *nix programmers who were supposed to
> customize a third-party framework (I forget the name of it) to be used
> by all the departments within NorTel.
>
> After 6 months, they finally decided that customizing the framework they
> bought into was just not possible. They fired all but three of us and
> those three built a framework for them within a couple of months - one
> that they could bend to conform to the business, rather than t'other way
> 'round.

Great thank you! Keep them comming people, really appreciate this.

Re: Joomla ready for large critical enterprise e-commerce application(s)?

am 04.09.2007 00:09:07 von Bucky Kaufman

Dawson wrote:

> I found your reply useful and it's of the same opinion as mine,
> however, I'm fighting against an agency who disagree, so, I need to
> find sources or a case study to prove why Joomla is not up to the job
> of an enterprise application.

Evangelists. Yuck. They decide the wrong way - from the goal to
supporting facts, instead of t'other way 'round.

It sounds like they've already decided on Joomla, and are now actually
looking for support for their predetermined goal.

For my two-cents worth, here's a buck.

It sounds like you might consider turning it around and asking the
"agency" that pronounced Joomla to be an "enterprise application" to
back up that claim. (Good luck with that.)

Bear in mind, that it's a framework for building applications, and not
an application unto itself. Whether you go with Joomla or build an
in-house solution, the enterprise will still need to keep a development
staff on hand - and they will be busy.

Bearing that in mind, consider further that that staff will all have to
be Joomla specialists - a very time consuming requirement since Joomla
is a very BUSY Open Source project and *constantly* changing, often in
very dramatic ways. The current version is called 1.5, but is really
just one of a dozen or so releases put out in a very short time - some
buggier than others.

Finally, it's worth re-emphasizing that even though Joomla markets their
product as a being usable in creating "complex corporate applications",
it is not an EA unto itself

What they're doing there is what I call "stealing legitimacy" from a
foundation component - strictly for marketing purposes. In fact, it is
PHP itself that makes EAP development so doable - and not Joomla.

Re: Joomla ready for large critical enterprise e-commerce application(s)?

am 04.09.2007 01:04:41 von shimmyshack

On Sep 3, 11:09 pm, Sanders Kaufman wrote:
> Dawson wrote:
> > I found your reply useful and it's of the same opinion as mine,
> > however, I'm fighting against an agency who disagree, so, I need to
> > find sources or a case study to prove why Joomla is not up to the job
> > of an enterprise application.
>
> Evangelists. Yuck. They decide the wrong way - from the goal to
> supporting facts, instead of t'other way 'round.
>
> It sounds like they've already decided on Joomla, and are now actually
> looking for support for their predetermined goal.
>
> For my two-cents worth, here's a buck.
>
> It sounds like you might consider turning it around and asking the
> "agency" that pronounced Joomla to be an "enterprise application" to
> back up that claim. (Good luck with that.)
>
> Bear in mind, that it's a framework for building applications, and not
> an application unto itself. Whether you go with Joomla or build an
> in-house solution, the enterprise will still need to keep a development
> staff on hand - and they will be busy.
>
> Bearing that in mind, consider further that that staff will all have to
> be Joomla specialists - a very time consuming requirement since Joomla
> is a very BUSY Open Source project and *constantly* changing, often in
> very dramatic ways. The current version is called 1.5, but is really
> just one of a dozen or so releases put out in a very short time - some
> buggier than others.
>
> Finally, it's worth re-emphasizing that even though Joomla markets their
> product as a being usable in creating "complex corporate applications",
> it is not an EA unto itself
>
> What they're doing there is what I call "stealing legitimacy" from a
> foundation component - strictly for marketing purposes. In fact, it is
> PHP itself that makes EAP development so doable - and not Joomla.

one of the very first php servers that I had to clean up following a
worm was acked through joomla.
nice software to be sure, but for enterprise you are talking proper
security, code auditing, stability, fast patch time, business support,
one of the things enterprise IT guys fear most is a constantly
changing code base, and they mistakenly think open source means wide
open to busy fingers meddling with it. Joomla would be very hard to
force into shape, and you would be left with a code of files that
would quickly be outdated and unpatchable from the Joomla source
unless you used SVN/CVS to update parts of the codebase left after you
had modified it for your use.
I cant understand anyone suggesting that a piece of software is
enterprise level... what does it mean... surely enterprise is much
more than the software, its whether it is scalable whether it
integrates into the existing business, do you already have php
servers, or in house php experts, will it run on apache, do you all
understand how to secure apache, or will that have to be outsourced.
IMHO agencies tend to steer biz towards what the agency can support
and away from what the biz has skills to support for obvious reasons.

Re: Joomla ready for large critical enterprise e-commerce application(s)?

am 04.09.2007 05:51:01 von Larry Anderson

On Sep 3, 12:43 pm, Dawson wrote:
> A client of ours with a large ecommerce shop is looking at moving to
> Joomla...
>
> The question is:
>
> Is Joomla ready for large critical enterprise e-commerce
> application(s), with white-labelling and all the features, stability
> and security you would expect to come with it?
>
> Can you point me to a case-study/url/source(s) for your opinion.
>

It's been out a while so it's probably pretty well debugged. But I
found it only works a certain way (as another poster mentioned) and I
didn't think it fit in to what I wanted.

Since Joomla is free why don't you set up a beige box with it and play
around, see what it does and if you guys like it. That's what I did.

It mainly depends on if you know what you want or you don't. If you
don't Joomla is just about as good as any other, if you do then you
may have certain formats, standards or operations you will want to
assure Joomla or whatever CMS can handle before adopting.

Re: Joomla ready for large critical enterprise e-commerce application(s)?

am 04.09.2007 08:30:55 von Lammi

On 3 Sep., 21:43, Dawson wrote:
> A client of ours with a large ecommerce shop is looking at moving to
> Joomla...
>
> The question is:
>
> Is Joomla ready for large critical enterprise e-commerce
> application(s), with white-labelling and all the features, stability
> and security you would expect to come with it?
>
> Can you point me to a case-study/url/source(s) for your opinion.
>
> Thank you for your time in advance.

no, it isn't. i've played around with joomla because we were looking
for a enterprise, easy to use, multilanguage and multisite cms. my
company thought about typo3, but the people who'll use the cms aren't
able to handle typo3.

the only point joomla matches is "easy to use".

the reason why we kicked it out: you need a hack to make it multisite-
ready. that's absurd, i don't wanna install an extra-cms for every
single domain (and we've a lot of domains!) and i don't wanna use not-
supported, inofficial hacks in my companys cms. there is a huge list
of vulnerabilities in joomla (most of them in addons, not in joomla-
core).

if you're able to script jsp, take a look at opencms. if you've time
and you're cold blooded, get typo3 (it's an awful monster...). if
you're working on a really large ecommerce-system, take a deeper look
on some commercial products, f. e. livelink.

Re: Joomla ready for large critical enterprise e-commerce application(s)?

am 04.09.2007 08:46:11 von Dawson

On 4 Sep, 07:30, Lammi wrote:
> On 3 Sep., 21:43, Dawson wrote:
>
> > A client of ours with a large ecommerce shop is looking at moving to
> > Joomla...
>
> > The question is:
>
> > Is Joomla ready for large critical enterprise e-commerce
> > application(s), with white-labelling and all the features, stability
> > and security you would expect to come with it?
>
> > Can you point me to a case-study/url/source(s) for your opinion.
>
> > Thank you for your time in advance.
>
> no, it isn't. i've played around with joomla because we were looking
> for a enterprise, easy to use, multilanguage and multisite cms. my
> company thought about typo3, but the people who'll use the cms aren't
> able to handle typo3.
>
> the only point joomla matches is "easy to use".
>
> the reason why we kicked it out: you need a hack to make it multisite-
> ready. that's absurd, i don't wanna install an extra-cms for every
> single domain (and we've a lot of domains!) and i don't wanna use not-
> supported, inofficial hacks in my companys cms. there is a huge list
> of vulnerabilities in joomla (most of them in addons, not in joomla-
> core).
>
> if you're able to script jsp, take a look at opencms. if you've time
> and you're cold blooded, get typo3 (it's an awful monster...). if
> you're working on a really large ecommerce-system, take a deeper look
> on some commercial products, f. e. livelink.

Thank you everyone, I'm going to try and formulate something this
morning from all you comments. I really appreciate you taking the time
to respond, some great stuff here.