So day 2 was a lot of fun. My goal leading into the conference was to focus my attention on learning as much as I could on three topics I thought would be interesting and helpful to my practice:
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Magento 2 vs Shopify+ - how Magento and other Solutions Providers were thinking about the benefits of each platform, what their sales positioning was, and what the long term competitive strategy might be. Also interested in listening to merchants too.
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Tools and Extensions to take a Magento 2 Implementation to the next level, particularly on the Marketing side but also performance.
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Agile practices - learn who is leading in this space in the Magento arena and what tools and practices they're promoting
Magento 2 Enterprise Cloud Solution
We knew an announcement was coming but didn't know precisely what it would be. During Day 2 Magento dropped the bomb that Magento would be releasing a new product called "Magento 2 Enterprise Cloud Edition".
Magento Enterprise Cloud Edition is an optional add on package to the EE 2.0 license that includes DevOps tools, support for common services like New Relic, and a Magento supported Cloud Hosting on AWS. It will not be made available without an Enterprise 2.0 license.
@magento announced "Enterprise Cloud Edition" Responds to threat posed by looming SAAS competitors #MagentoImagine pic.twitter.com/sK8Ywlj6vt
— Duri Chitayat (@durichitayat) April 12, 2016
Magento was quick to clarify that Magento Enterprise Cloud Edition is a PaaS not a SaaS solution. What this mean is that Magento Cloud Edition remains open and fully customizable to distinguish itself from Shopify+ which is closed proprietary system that limits developers freedom to write custom code.
@durichitayat @pixafy swing by the Cloud lounge for an explanation of how Enterprise Cloud Edition is NOT another Go. PaaS not SaaS
— Paul Boisvert (@ProductPaul) April 12, 2016
I think this is a good strategy for Magento. It will help put Magento on more even footing with Shopify+ when it comes to rapid development, all-inclusive packaging of the solution, and may even help solve the upgrades and patches (although I'm still a little fuzzy on how that will work).
The question that remains is how well can Magento support this product and I think most people at the conference recognized that.