Hybris Multi-Channel Suite – a quick review

Recognized for its multi-channel ecommerce offering and a flexible architecture, Hybris poses a strong competition to IBM and Oracle (ATG) in the enterprise eCommerce software space. Hybris Multi-Channel Suite offers to build a consistent cross-channel customer experience across multiple channels like online web storefront, mobile storefront, print, brick & mortar stores, customer services call center and social media.

Multi-Channel Suite is a J2EE multi-tiered eCommerce framework that can deliver most use cases in B2C as well as B2B scenarios. Interestingly, similar to Elastic path, Hybris leverages several Open Source project for it’s eCommerce Suite like Spring Framework, Ehcache, Apache Solr, Hibernate Validator, Apache Commons, Google Guava and Jasper Reports. Hybris adopts a loosely coupled product architecture, that’s based on extensions and modules, making it relatively easy to integrate new features and functionality into your deployment.

Hybris is a good mix of product and framework – when deployed, it offers a functional  B2C storefront out-of-box so you don’t have to develop your storefronts from scratch; it also offers rich API that allows you to customize as well develop your storefronts from scratch. Hybris also offers templates, accelerators and applications that add rich set of features to your deployments – although charged separately, these can reduce your development efforts and time to market. These components include B2B application, web content management capabilities, product information and content management capabilities, B2b, B2C and multichannel accelerators. Hybris offers a developer friendly Eclipse based development framework and web based interface for administrators and business users.

Predominantly a European player, Hybris had it’s initial share of success in the region. Hybris make inroads into the North American geo thought it’s partnerships and partners network  but with limited success. This is expected to change with Hybris acquisition of iCongo in August 2011. iCongo is a Montreal (Canada) based eCommerce vendor and offers Hybris a strong customer base in North America along with an easy access to the market. A strategic move that’ll help Hybris shed it’s European vendor image as well as offers a near shore customer support presence – limitations that has been hindering it’s growth in the region. iCongo also brings Cloud hosting experience, and a strong Order Management and Warehouse Management capabilities to the Hybris product offering.

If you are a non European customer looking to make a decision on the product, Do keep in mind that it’ll be really hard to find experienced architects and developers oh Hybris. You will have to reach out to either Hybris Professional services or of Hybris partner work for most of the development efforts. This may still be an expensive proposition as most of these are Europe based service providers. That said, given that the product adoption and visibility is on the rise, I’m starting to see several new service integrators, including some of the leading global player stating to build expertise on Hybris.

Posted in eCommerce | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Joomla! 2.5 launched – a smarter and database agnostic CMS

Joomla, one of the leading Open Source CMS, today launched Joomla! 2.5. Keep in mind that this is a new release of the Joomla! CMS layer and is based on Joomla! Platform 11.4. Just to refresh your memory, with Joomla! 1.7 Joomla! Platform (formerly known as “framework”) was separated from the higher-level CMS layer.

Continue reading

Posted in CMS, FOSS, Joomla, Open Source, WCM | Leave a comment

Happy New Year 2012

Posted in Greetings | Leave a comment

Will WEMI achieve what JCR, CMIS & JSR 168 didn’t ?

I guess most of  you would agree with me when I say that the portal marketplace has pretty much matured – most portals vendors offer significantly similar features, and all the probable acquisitions have already taken place.
On the other hand, one of Portal’s complementary marketplaces has probably just hit puberty – Web Content Management (WCM). The WCM marketplace is  fast innovating and evolving into Web Experience Management (WEM) offerings. The WCM marketplace is also witnessing some significant  consolidations amongst large players in the space, in addition to the emergence of a large number for new and niche WCM players – both with open source as well as commercial offerings. While this adds a lot of excitement in the marketplace, this marketplace evolution posses several challenges for it’s customers. The most common one being The Product Selection – weather to continue with the current selection or switch to another product.

Continue reading

Posted in Acquisition, CMIS, CMS, ECM, Jahia, JSR 168, Liferay, Mergers, Nuxeo, Standards, WCM, WEM, WEMI | 1 Comment

Do all roads for eBay lead to X.commerce ?

eBay was one of the most notable successes during the dot com boom. One of the reason being that eBay offered an enormous opportunity to individuals and small merchants by opening up the huge online marketplace from them. That said the large merchants or enterprises typically stayed away from this model cause of their individual capacity to implement their own eCommerce portals.

Continue reading

Posted in Acquisition, eBay, eCommerce, GSI, Intershop, Magento, PayPal, X.commerce | Leave a comment

Magento eCommerce Review

Introduction

Executive Summary

The fastest growing eCommerce platform in the recent past, Magento is a PHP based Open Source eCommerce platform. Magento is also the youngest member of the eCommerce platform family; that said the brains behind the product have been around in the industry for quite a while – and that experience quite as well reflects in the product offering.

Continue reading

Posted in Commercial Open Source, Detail, eCommerce, FOSS, Magento, Open Source, Reviews | Leave a comment

Commercial Open Source – gate crashing the party

Open Source project are primarily ‘community driven’ project that are often lead (but not governed) and supported by the community. While some customers ( primarily individuals and small organizations) have been prompt in adopting these open source projects; a significant section of large enterprises have been reluctant in adopting these projects for their critical engagements. The key concern being lack of dedicated ownership and support that then bank on when the need arises.
Continue reading
Posted in Alfresco, Liferay, Magento, Nuxeo, Open Source | Leave a comment

Microsoft Commerce Server – breaking off or just taking a pause

I was a bit surprised (but not shocked) when I read Mary-Jo Foley’s blog about Microsoft offloading it’s Commerce server.
Not shocked cause Microsoft commerce hasn’t been a particularly well recognised product offering in the eCommerce space. In my years of experience in the eCommerce space, I can count the number of time I’ve come across Microsoft Commerce Server. And given Microsoft’s lack of attention to the product, such a fate was inevitable.
Posted in ATG, eCommerce, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle | 2 Comments

Wish you a very Happy Diwali

happy-diwali

Posted in Diwali, Greetings | Leave a comment

Why NOT to buy a Sony VAIO

When you buy a Sony product, you’d expect a funky looking quality product backed by a great customer service.
Well that’s what I had expected before a Sony VAIO VPCSB18GG – it had pretty sleek looks, good configuration and service center at a walking distance from my place.   A bit over priced, but being a Sony’s product and it’s premium range, it felts it’s worth the investment. But I’ve been in for a SHOCK!!  Over the past few months I have realised that Sony VAIO’s are un-tested, fragile pieces of equipment that’s been put together by Sony – probably Sony’s worst product line. To make things worse, the customer support that I’ve received has been out rightly disappointing – a bunch of irresponsible and un-concerned folks.

Continue reading

Posted in General | 4 Comments