Magento is an open-source e-commerce platform written in PHP. The software was originally developed by Varien, Inc, a US private company headquartered in Culver City, California, with assistance from volunteers.
Varien published the first general-availability release of the software on March 31, 2008. Roy Rubin, former CEO of Varien, later sold a substantial share of the company to eBay, which eventually completely acquired and then spun off the company.
On November 17, 2015, Magento 2.0 was released, with an aim to provide new ways to heighten user engagement, smooth navigation, improve conversion rates and overall revenue generation for store owners. It has well-organized business user tools that enhance the user experience of the software. Among the improved features of V2 over V1 are; Table locking issues have been considerably reduced, improved page caching, enterprise-grade scalability, inbuilt rich snippets for structured data, new file structure with easy customization, CSS Preprocessing using LESS & CSS URL resolver, improved performance and better code base are some of the touted benefits of the newer Magento version.
Magento employs the MySQL or MariaDB relational database management system, the PHP programming language, and elements of the Zend Framework. It applies the conventions of object-oriented programming and model-view-controller architecture. Magento also uses the entity-attribute-value model to store data. On top of that, Magento 2 introduced the Model-View-ViewModel pattern to its front-end code using the JavaScript library Knockout.js.
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History
Magento officially started development in early 2007. Seven months later, on August 31, 2007, the first public beta version was released.
Varien, the company owning Magento, formerly worked with osCommerce. It had originally planned to fork osCommerce but later decided to rewrite it as Magento.
In February 2011, eBay announced it had made an investment in Magento in 2010, worth a 49% ownership share of the company.
On June 6, 2011, eBay announced that it would be acquiring the rest of Magento, which would join its new X.Commerce initiative. Magento's CEO and co-founder Roy Rubin wrote on the Magento blog that "Magento will continue to operate out of Los Angeles, with Yoav Kutner and me as its leaders.".
Yoav Kutner left Magento in April 2012 citing the vision for Magento having changed since the time of acquisition due to high level staff changes.
As a result of the breakup of eBay following Carl Icahn's raid, Magento was spun out as an independent company by the new owner Permira private equity fund on November 3, 2015.
Magento Marketing Automation Video
Overview
Magento is the provider of two distinct platforms: Magento Open Source (previously "Magento Community Edition") and Magento Commerce; the later of which is available in an On-Premises version (previously "Magento Enterprise Edition") or as a platform as a service (previously "Magento Enterprise Cloud Edition". There were also two former platforms, Magento Professional Edition and Magento Go.
Magento Open Source
Magento Open Source, previously "Magento Community Edition," is an open-source eCommerce platform. Developers can implement the core files and extend its functionality by adding new plug-in modules provided by other developers. Since the first public beta version was released in 2007, Magento Open Source has been developed and customized in order to provide a basic eCommerce platform.
The current release and each of the previous historical release versions of the 1.X and 2.X version branches of Magento Open Source are available on the Magento Commerce, Inc. website for download as single-file downloads Development of the 2.X version branch of Magento CE is coordinated publicly on GitHub.
The latest actively supported versions of Magento Open Source are CE 1.9.3 and 2.1.7.
Magento Commerce
Released April 11, 2016, Magento Commerce is a platform as a service.
Magento 2 has many new and improved features, developer tools and its architecture is quite different from all the previous versions. Magento 2 was announced in 2010. It was planned for release in 2011, and its merchant beta version was released in July 2015. Since then Magento 1 and Magento 2 have existed simultaneously.
Magento Commerce (On-Premises)
Magento Commerce (On-Premises), previously "Magento Enterprise Edition" is derived from Magento Open Source and has the same core files. Unlike Open Source, this is not free, but has more features and functionality. This product is designed for large businesses that require technical support with installation, usage, configuration, and troubleshooting. Although Magento Commerce has annual maintenance fees, neither Open Source nor Commerce (On-Premises) include hosting. The Magento team develops Magento Commerce by cooperating with users and third parties. Development on the 2.X branch of Magento Commerce is coordinated publicly on GitHub.
The latest actively supported versions of Magento Commerce are EE 1.14.2.4 and EE 2.1.7 released on May 31, 2017.
Magento Consulting & Partners
While Magento 2 has a fully responsive template called "Luma", customization is most likely to be needed to make the most out of Magento.
Magento Expert Consulting Group
Merchants running their stores on Magento Commerce or are willing to switch to Magento Commerce can contact Magento's official Expert Consulting Group.
Magento Partners
Solution Partners
Magento Soltution Partners are companies that have extensive experience implementing and adjusting Magento websites. Anyone who is interested in modifying their Magento website can find a Magento Solution Partner in Magento's official Solution Partner Directory.
There are different types of Magento Solution Partners. Some solution partners not only provide full website development but also 24/7 Magento Support. Others are focused on Magento Security , full project builds or fields they feel strong at.
Technology Partners
Magento Technology Partners are companies or products that help merchants improve their website out of the box. Their solutions and extensions cover more than 20 different categories including marketing automation, payments, content management, shipping, tax, hosting, and performance. To ensure quality and compatibility, all Magento Technology Partners pass a rigorous business and technology review. Magento Technology Partners can be found in the official website directory.
Security concerns
In 2015 it was reported that outdated or unpatched Magento web stores are susceptible to Cross-site scripting attack, which allow attackers to perform online skimming to steal user credit card information. According to a security expert, more than 4000 Magento web stores were vulnerable to such an attack in October 2016.
In 2017 security company DefenseCode reported that Magento CE web stores are susceptible to Remote Code Execution attack, which allows attackers to perform online skimming, steal stored credit card information of future and previous customers, take control of the database, and in some instances even the complete server - including other Magento instances. It's suspected that up to 260,000 Magento web stores could be vulnerable to such an attack in April 2017.
Magento Events Worldwide
"Imagine eCommerce" is the annual Magento eCommerce conference that has run since 2011. The first event was held in February 2011 in Los Angeles with more than 600 Magento merchants, partners, and developers. The goals of the "Imagine eCommerce" are sharing ecommerce ideas and providing networking opportunity sessions.
Besides Imagine, Magento also cooperates with local teams to set up a so-called "Magento Live" event in which the participants will have fantastic opportunities to learn more about the platform, ecommerce and which news has got in store for Magento merchants. The biggest event of Magento Live is Magento Live in Australia (Sydney), Magento Live UK or Magento Live France. The latest event calendar of Magento & Ecommerce worldwide in 2017 has been recaptured by Redbox Digital team.. Another B2B event is due to be held in Manchester on January 31st 2018 by Monsoon Consulting, who will showcase Magento's new 2.2 release.
There is one non-profit organization which contributes up to more than 24 Magento events global per year named "The Meet Magento Association" The association is open to all companies who are active in any form of commerce or distribution and who are and want using Magento commerce now or in future. They also run a big project called Localized Magento Edition where they get supported from the local Magento agency to transform Magento default to localized edition with native language and business norms. The project has been run on all developed market of Magento like Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania and Russia and also Vietnam - a "rising dragon" for ecommerce trading in Asia .
Certification
There are four different Magento certifications. Three of them aim to prove developers' competency in implementing modules; one (Certified Solution Specialist) targets business users (consultants, analysts, project managers). Magento Front End Developer Certification is mainly focused on improving the user interface (UI) of back end developers who implement the core modules. The Plus certification tests deep understanding of Magento Enterprise modules and the entire architecture.
Resources
Magento DevBox is a Docker container that allows for the easy installation of the latest Magento 2 CE or EE platform in a virtual environment. It also allows developers to link to an existing local Magento 2 installation. As of June 2017, it is still in beta.
Magento 2 released on Apr 11, 2017, the latest version is v2.1.7, download it from tech resources page or Github.
Magento 1 migration to Magento 2 can be done by the official Data Migration Tool . The migration can be performed by developers with extensive Magento 1 and 2 experience or companies that specialize in Magento .
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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