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Apr
20
Posted by:
Nik Kalyani
4/20/2009 1:41 PM
In my last post – DotNetNuke Business Model and Product Roadmap (Part 1 of 2) – I provided some insights into the DotNetNuke Corp. business model, specifically as it pertains to the similarities and differences between DotNetNuke Community and Professional Editions.
In this post I provide some background and insights into how we develop the DotNetNuke product roadmap and also share the roadmap for DotNetNuke 5.1 Community and Professional Editions.
There is no shortage of features that existing DotNetNuke users would like to see added to the product. No matter what feature we add, there will be some users who question the addition of that feature over another that may have more importance to them. The best thing we can do is to gather input from as many constituencies as possible, and then prioritize based on strategic objectives and time/resource constraints.
In order to determine the roadmap for DotNetNuke, we use the following sources:
- Site forums
- Site roadmap
- Enhancement requests logged in Gemini
- Feedback from site forms and surveys
- Feedback from DotNetNuke team volunteers
- Feedback from customers (of both editions)
- Feedback from customer prospects
- Feedback from ISV’s, consultants and designers in our ecosystem
- Feedback from ISV’s and consultants not in our ecosystem
- Feedback from conference and user group attendees
- Analysis of competitive landscape
- Industry, market and technology trends
- Feedback from experts in Open Source, WCM and enterprise software
- Feedback from investors
- Experience and intuition
After aggregating the resulting feature requests, we divide them into Community and Professional features.
Community features are those that broad segments of DotNetNuke users would find beneficial and would use on a regular basis. We review how the feature will impact the product’s usability, accessibility, security, performance, scalability, etc. We also evaluate the time and cost of implementing the feature and its strategic importance. All these factors determine if the feature is added to the product roadmap for the Community Edition.
Professional features are those that advanced business users of DotNetNuke would find beneficial and would be willing to pay for. These features are often easy to spot as their use is typically associated with the existence of advanced infrastructure, large site membership, high-traffic or mission critical applications, advanced security requirements or complex business processes. Also, features that would result in significant time savings and improved productivity when managing large sites are candidates. We evaluate the time, cost and return on investment of implementing the feature and its strategic and competitive importance before adding it to the product roadmap for Professional Edition.
Since Professional Edition was first announced, we have often heard comments or concerns about neglecting or withholding features from Community Edition to "force people to buy Professional Edition." Let me share some insights to help mitigate these concerns:
- Continued growth in the adoption of Community Edition is essential to the survival of DotNetNuke Corp. Open Source companies cease to exist if they don’t have a thriving community. Communities don’t thrive around products that are stagnant and not evolving or innovating. We want DotNetNuke Corp. to be successful, and therefore, ensuring the continued success of Community Edition is a strategic imperative for us.
- We can’t put every feature with value only into Community Edition, nor can we put every feature with value only into Professional Edition. There is a middle ground and finding it is not an exact science. We have to balance our desire to have Community Edition adoption grow, with our need to build a sustainable, profitable business so we can pay our bills and continue to fund the project. The feature selection process outlined above, while subjective, is rational and driven by our prior experience nurturing the growth of this ecosystem.
- If you happen to be one of those people with the concerns outlined above, do consider the roadmap for DotNetNuke 5.1 Community and Professional Edition below objectively. I trust that after reviewing the roadmap you will not be as concerned.
DotNetNuke 5.1 Roadmap
Now that you have some background and perspective, let’s review the roadmap for DotNetNuke 5.1.
Starting with 5.1 we are embarking on a multi-release, phased improvement of the DotNetNuke User Experience from the ground-up. Our vision is to implement a high degree of consistency, usability and fluidity to the DotNetNuke user experience by employing a pattern-based UI approach. We have created mock-ups of many such patterns, and as you can imagine, the task of implementing them is large with significant enhancements to the Core Framework Libraries and Core Extensions.
Given the nature of user interfaces, they have high complexity or interdependency and therefore are at a high risk of taking longer than planned. (In the roadmap grid below, some UX features have a gray background to indicate their risk of being excluded from the release or adversely impacting the release schedule.)
Another feature we will deliver in 5.1 is the often-requested Content Approval feature. We view this feature as separate and different from Workflow, which may involve complex business rules and processes. Since most “content” in DotNetNuke is managed using the Text/HTML module, we will implement the approval features in this module. Professional Edition users who have more involved Content Approval requirements can continue to use the Text/HTML module or derive additional benefit from the HTML Pro module, a more advanced version of the Text/HTML module that will be included in the Professional Edition package.
Here’s the roadmap feature grid for DotNetNuke 5.1:
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Comment
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Community
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Professional
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Content Management
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Content Approval
- Single-stage content approval
- Select content approver roles at the site level
- Text/HTML module enhancement to support Content Approval
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Content Approval and Versioning
- Multi-stage content approval
- Define stages and select content approver roles at the site level
- HTML Pro module to support multi-stage Content Approval
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User Experience
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Control Panel
Improvements in usability and appearance through tabbed, ribbon user interface
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Advanced Control Panel
Add a page or edit common page settings directly from the Control Panel
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Skin Objects
Skin objects code will be XHTML compliant
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Action Panel Skin Object
An Action Panel Skin Object to provide a consistent way for exposing available actions to users
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Management Console
Improve access and discoverability of administrative features by aggregating features into a Windows-style control panel
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Analytics & SEO
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Google Analytics Support
Support for injection of analytics tracking code on every page
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Google Analytics for Marketing Support
Support for advanced Google Analytics segmentation based on role membership
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Per-page Custom Sitemap Rank
Define the rank for each page for use in the Sitemap published to search engines.
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Security
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Change Audit
Last modified and full history audit trails
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Extended Edit Permissions
Page, module and folder level permissions that extend existing Edit permissions
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Scalability
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Distributed Caching Provider
More efficient resource usage in large web farms
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Stability
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Application Integrity Checking
Checks files in the installation and reports any inconsistencies which may impact website reliability
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Network Services
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Health Monitoring
Pings the website periodically to identify failures and will notify the site owner. Also ensures the site stays in web server memory for faster user accessibility
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Vulnerability Database (Basic)
Maintains a vulnerability database with basic information for each product version to easily identify potential issues
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Vulnerability Database (Detailed)
Maintains a vulnerability database with detailed information for each product version to easily identify potential issues
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Hopefully the information in this two-post series was helpful to you and answered more questions than it raised.
Tags:
25 comment(s) so far...
Re: DotNetNuke Business Model and Product Roadmap (Part 2 of 2)
For extended edit permissions, does this mean the community edition will not support granular permissions down to the page and module level? Or does this just mean something "else" -- extended -- in terms of permissions controls?
By vollerworld on
4/20/2009 3:58 PM
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Re: DotNetNuke Business Model and Product Roadmap (Part 2 of 2)
Community Edition already supports and will continue to support granular permissions at the page and module level. Extended means "in addition" to the capability that already exists.
By Nik Kalyani on
4/20/2009 4:03 PM
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Re: DotNetNuke Business Model and Product Roadmap (Part 2 of 2)
This is an impressive roadmap... one that looks like a LOT of time and effort on the part of many people went into. I continue to be impressed by the huge amount of work that it seems many members put toward the project. Congrats!
By vollerworld on
4/20/2009 4:14 PM
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Re: DotNetNuke Business Model and Product Roadmap (Part 2 of 2)
It's nice to see the difference between community and pro. I think it is key for the Core team to keep the differences public and well known. When looking through the roadmap, I see some things that would be nice. IE the create a whole page setup from control panel, however I can live with out it. If I really want it I know of 2 vendors which already have a similar product, which has more features then the one Pro will have (most likely). Pro has the network service, but eh I have a keep alive program running on a laptop that is doing the same thing, cost me a one time cost of 15 bucks.
So as you point out the pro edition just takes things we as a community have found as cheap / worked around for past few years and rolls it into the core as to make the dare I say less technical "professionals" life easier. We all know who I'm talking about its that IT department that refuses to run a small program to keep memory in check, yet fusses your consuming to much. LOL
Thanks for both posts / blogs. They are a bit reassuring, that no the pro edition isn't all that special, just rolls up some key "business level" extensions / modules, that as a community we have found solutions for already, all be it less classy as being included in core.
By keeperofstars on
4/21/2009 4:11 AM
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Re: DotNetNuke Business Model and Product Roadmap (Part 2 of 2)
what's the plan for the social networking components?
By CurlyFro on
4/21/2009 5:41 AM
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Re: DotNetNuke Business Model and Product Roadmap (Part 2 of 2)
@curlyfro Social networking components are on our roadmap for this year. We have a community contribution in this area and are reviewing it to determine viability.
By Nik Kalyani on
4/21/2009 6:14 AM
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Re: DotNetNuke Business Model and Product Roadmap (Part 2 of 2)
Just to clarify: It appears that none of the 'projects' modules like Documents, Forums, Repository, etc will be developed by or supported by DNN Corp. So if I pay the fee for DNN Pro and the Documents module has a bug will DNN Corp support that via a helpdesk ticket or do I have to go to the forums for help same as with the Community Edition.
I would suggest that at least some of the basic modules like Documents, Repository, Forums, etc. end up in the list of things DNN corp supports and builds. If not, how do you expect the framework to have modern modules that keep up with your core development pace and have some level of support? The volunteer teams won't be able to keep up I assume.
By dnner . on
4/21/2009 10:08 AM
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Re: DotNetNuke Business Model and Product Roadmap (Part 2 of 2)
Great update! Thanks for the details. I think you guys have done a great job of picking what should be in the Pro vs. Community edition. And this makes it easy for me to explain/sell to my clients.
By David OLeary on
4/21/2009 10:07 AM
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Re: DotNetNuke Business Model and Product Roadmap (Part 2 of 2)
Road map looks nice, but you are missing what is arguably the most substantial missing feature of the Text/HTML. We need to have image management buit into the FCK Editor or Text.HTML module in some way. Explaining to clients that you have to resize images before uploading them is getting real old not to mention ineffective.
By Mike Cox on
4/21/2009 10:08 AM
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Re: DotNetNuke Business Model and Product Roadmap (Part 2 of 2)
I can't wait anymore! This roadmap looks really nice and cool! Great! My love for DotNetNuke is increasing day by day!
By Davide Espertini on
4/21/2009 11:54 AM
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Re: DotNetNuke Business Model and Product Roadmap (Part 2 of 2)
@dnner Good observation and great questions. Let's separate and address the two issues -- support for Community Extensions and availability of "modern" modules for the framework.
DotNetNuke Corp. does provide support to Professional Edition customers for Community Extensions. Here, it is important to understand that support means identifying the root cause of a problem and then proposing remedies or workarounds to address the problem. If the root cause turns out to be a benign bug, our support engineers will submit a bug report to the project team just as anyone else would. If the bug has security implications, then we will elevate our response, follow our security protocols and work closely with the team to ensure that users are adequately protected. Finally, in rare situations, if the bug is debilitating, we may create a fix to resolve the customer's immediate problem and also make it available to the extension team for inclusion in a future release of the extension at their discretion.
On the second topic, it is important to note that we have a developer ecosystem. First, we have incredible teams of volunteers working on developing Community Extensions. Second, we have many independent developers and companies creating free and commercial extensions for DotNetNuke. For end-users, this is ideal as it gives them the ability to choose the solution that best meets their needs. Innovation is market-driven. This is an ideal situation for DNN Corp. as it allows us to focus our efforts on platform innovation while the community and market drive extension innovation.
To summarize, we fully support Core, Community and third-party extensions for Professional Edition customers. For problems with Core extensions, we own the problem so we own the responsibility to deliver a solution. For problems with Community extensions we follow the process outlined above. For problems with third-party extensions, we try to isolate the problem and give the customer the information they need to get resolution of the problem with the vendor who created the extension.
By Nik Kalyani on
4/21/2009 2:41 PM
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Re: DotNetNuke Business Model and Product Roadmap (Part 2 of 2)
I agree with Mike - "We need to have image management built into the FCK Editor or Text.HTML module in some way. Explaining to clients that you have to resize images before uploading them is getting real old not to mention ineffective".
Something like this would be nice as a built in image editor - www.dotnetnuke.com/Development/Forge/tabid/824/ctl/Details/mid/3713/Projectid/29/Default.aspx?page=1&filter=1
By Adski on
4/21/2009 6:25 PM
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Re: DotNetNuke Business Model and Product Roadmap (Part 2 of 2)
Great blog posts, thanks. WRT "Improvements in usability" I see many developers 'inventing' their own usability approach. Since you have investigated this issue, it would be helpful to see some guidelines for module developers. I read in your post that next DNN versions will be using "tabbed, ribbon user interface". Could you elaborate on this? So other developers could create interface that are in line with DNN corp efforts.Please throw some images at us ;)
By peter schotman on
4/22/2009 6:42 AM
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Re: DotNetNuke Business Model and Product Roadmap (Part 2 of 2)
Mike, there are always third party editors you can use. We have been using / distributing Telerik editor (and controls) for years...
By bryan andrews on
4/22/2009 6:42 AM
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Re: DotNetNuke Business Model and Product Roadmap (Part 2 of 2)
Thanks for the concise and pretty detailed road map. It addresses my concerns that came about from the partial reports and rumors, and leaves more issues to be dealt with, though in a saner manner than just hearsay. Kudos on the communication job.
I'm also pleased to see the scalability and stability functions moved to the Pro version only. Realistically, a customer using those functions should be using Pro anyway and it solves technical and support issues for those of us supporting Community installations.
By Jeff Cochran on
4/22/2009 6:41 AM
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Re: DotNetNuke Business Model and Product Roadmap (Part 2 of 2)
Nik, I have a question for you. You state here: "...We can’t put every feature with value only into Community Edition, nor can we put every feature with value only into Professional Edition."
Yet, when I look at the roadmap, every feature is placed in Professional Edition, just not in Community Edition. This contradicts your statement. Can you elaborate on this and let us know, precisely, what will be placed in the CE edition that will not make it into the PE?
By Mark Gordon on
4/22/2009 8:13 AM
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Re: DotNetNuke Business Model and Product Roadmap (Part 2 of 2)
@markgordon I do not believe there is a contradiction. Between the information presented in my last post (link in opening paragraph above) and the roadmap presented in this post, I have already specified precisely what is in CE and PE. Perhaps I am not understanding your question...please clarify.
By Nik Kalyani on
4/22/2009 8:35 AM
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Re: DotNetNuke Business Model and Product Roadmap (Part 2 of 2)
@peterschotman I will make a separate and more detailed post about our UX efforts soon. One of the challenges for end-users of DotNetNuke has always been that a DNN portal page is a canvas where different developers can paint their masterpieces (modules). While each module on a page might be fantastic in its own right, the problem is that there is no consistency in the interface for the end-user and as a result the quality of their user experience is diminished.
The only way to solve this problem is to define some standards for developers to voluntarily follow, provide some tools and let the market do its thing. We are working on this and I will write-up a post in the next week on our approach and also share mockups as you have requested.
By Nik Kalyani on
4/22/2009 8:47 AM
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Re: DotNetNuke Business Model and Product Roadmap (Part 2 of 2)
Hi Nik,
Certainly. What I was referring to was the Table that shows what is in the road map for Professional and the Road Map for Community editions, as shown above.
Everything listed is in the Professional column, but not in the Community column. Your post states that NOT everything that is in Community will be in Professional, and vice versa. However, everything IS in Professional, just not Community. That's where my confusion lies.
Thanks,
By Mark Gordon on
4/22/2009 10:01 AM
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Re: DotNetNuke Business Model and Product Roadmap (Part 2 of 2)
@markgordon Got it. Thanks for clarifying.
Since Community Edition is free and Open Source it is available to everybody, Professional Edition customers included. Its features are therefore not exclusive and are listed as being included in the Professional Edition.
By Nik Kalyani on
4/22/2009 10:20 AM
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Re: DotNetNuke Business Model and Product Roadmap (Part 2 of 2)
Great summary of the direction for DNN. My thought at first was, "Great, now I'm not going to have access to everything," but I can see that I misunderstood the CE/PE distinction. The PE (from a feature perspective) is really just bundled enterprise level extensions that DNN Corp. is building and making available to enterprise level customers. And this is no different than what we've had for years with third party vendors writing extensions and making them available commercially. If I want the PE features for a customer, I have my customer buy it, just like I would have my customer buy high end DNN modules if their needs exceeded what was available at other levels in the DNN ecosystem. The DNN system as we have known it, with it's highly extensible infrastructure and all of the community extensions (projects), is still available in its entirety just like it has always been. I'm excited to see where this leads us!
By Don Worthley on
4/22/2009 8:40 PM
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Re: DotNetNuke Business Model and Product Roadmap (Part 2 of 2)
Will 5.1be a production vesion ?
Is there an ETA for any community production version ?
By Moshe Fishman on
4/23/2009 3:57 AM
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Re: DotNetNuke Business Model and Product Roadmap (Part 2 of 2)
@moshefishman Yes, 5.1 will be a production release available this quarter (i.e. Q2 2009).
By Nik Kalyani on
4/23/2009 4:01 AM
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What about localization content?
I'm iterested to localization content.... I'ts about 2 years that i read something about the localization content in the 5.x version.... Have you more information?
Thank and complimet for the great work!!!!
By rmartin77 on
4/28/2009 12:28 PM
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Re: DotNetNuke Business Model and Product Roadmap (Part 2 of 2)
Thanks for the insights on the roadmap and the exciting future of DNN.
What I am missing though is some (future) plans on one of the biggest lacking features of this great CMS ... content localization ...
I simply cannot understand that this is not yet supported ... not everyone speaks 'English' and it is a shame that especially in Europe we cannot provide multi-language content from within 1 portal.
Keep up the good work,
Steven
By Steven De Saeger on
11/11/2009 5:27 AM
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