Welcome

This is Bob Bloom, coming to you live from Toronto, Canada.

Today is Thursday May 20th, 2010. We are here every Thursday at 1:00pm eastern time to talk about Joomla ecommerce.

Derek Heck, one of my Round Table guests, is here with me today.

Faisal Qureshi, of the Toronto Joomla User Group, is here as well.

I am on the Joomla Oscar nominee short list for best blogger. Thank you to whomever nominated me! Oscar stands for "Joomla Open Source Creative and Artistic Recognition". This is part of the Joomla! and Beyond conference in Germany this weekend.

I know you want me to talk about it. You've been listening to my show since February. We're friends now, aren't we?

I know you want me to talk about it. We can talk about things now, can't we?

So, we are going to talk about it.

The topic is...

... Virtuemart!

When I set this week's topic to Virtuemart, I was receiving quite a bit of resistance to the idea that Virtuemart is not king of the Joomla ecommerce hill anymore.

Today that intense resistance has vanished.

I think Virtuemart's inaction really speaks for itself.

Virtuemart is not the Joomla ecommerce leader anymore.

Virtuemart has put itself to bed.

Good night, Virtuemart.

Tienda is on the cusp of releasing a major upgrade of its Community edition, and its launch of its Enterprise version. The Anahita Social Engine released its milestone version 1.0 alpha this week, with a free download to the public. The Nooku Framework is on the cusp of releasing its version 0.7 beta, which will be released as an installable package.

In three weeks, the authors of Tienda and Nooku and Anahita are facing my Round Table together. I want you to hear the passing of the torch for yourself.

Virtuemart's critical MVC version may be released in time for the Joomla! and Beyond conference. Or not. That's what the Monday "Customize Virtuemart" article says: "I will also cover the new Virtuemart 1.5. If it is released until the event, it can of course take a bigger part". Well, I daresay, Tienda is not presenting a double session on Sunday covering its Mambo-Joomla 1.0 codebase.

The one thing that is still not universally understood is that the current Virtuemart 1.1.x simply will not install in the upcoming Joomla 1.6 -- which is now in beta.

Irony of ironies, running concurrent to the Monday VM session is a session entitled "Make your component fit for 1.6". I kid you not!

The waters have grown all around Virtuemart.

The ascendant Joomla technologies are leading the way.

Faisal, Derek, thanks for hanging in there!

Faisal, what do you think?

Derek, what do you think?

Closing

Faisal, Derek, thank you for being here.

Next Thursday I am taking a break. The week after, June 10th, Stian Didriksen tells us how Nooku puts money-making power your hands.