Today we extremely proud to present to your attention an interview with Brent Peterson - Lead US Forum Moderator for Magento, Software Developer at Wagento Data Consulting LLC and simply charismatic person. We are lucky to have Brent sharing his thoughts about Magento, his life within it, highly anticipated Magento 2 and much more. So, why don’t we get to the gist right now and help ourselves to the interview?
I started with a chain of computer stores in 1992 and eventually moved to ASP (Microsoft) web programming in 1998. We eventually moved to .net.
In 2009 was contracting at a company doing mainly .net programming work. They made a decision to choose a new platform. Someone chose Magento, I figured I better get on board and it was the best decision I could have ever made!
I learned Magento hands on (not how I would recommend) and in this I learned all the things NOT to do. The forums where a great place to ask questions and I eventually started answering questions. It got to the point where I answered so many that Magento asked if I wanted to help. After that they asked if I would recruit other moderators to help. I mainly focus on Magento upgrades.
By far the strength of the Magento Community is the #1 factor in its success. Among other reasons for success:
Yes I think we will see Magento2 this year. I think it will take a little time to gain some traction and also migration from the previous versions. For new clients it will be VERY exciting!
We will see an Alpha and a Beta release then we will get a 2.0. I would recommend that merchants wait until 2.0.1 before starting a large store. I think smaller stores are perfect to try 2.0 the minute it is released into production.
There are many SAAS platforms that are gaining traction and it will be a challenge to continue to differentiate the community version from some of those. I also think Magento will need to work on keeping the community cohesive. Community building is a big task.
We will see more and more mobile only and mobile friendly variations along with cross platform sales. I think we will see the intermix of eCommerce and Content grow especially in the mobile arena.
We’d like to express our gratitude to Brent for taking his time to share his thoughts with us. If you’ve further questions on Magento that aren’t covered in the post, feel free to leave them in the comments below.