We've all heard the phrase "the best thing since sliced bread," used to denote a game-changer, an innovation that really made an impact.
This first time this phrase was recorded was in the early '50s, when comedian Red Skelton told a local news publication not to fret the rise of television, as it was "the greatest thing since sliced bread," according to Today I Found Out contributor Matt Blitz.
"The invention of sliced bread was yet another case where things humans used to do by hand were now being done by machines, making it significantly more convenient than ever before," Blitz wrote.
Nowadays, it's a bit more difficult to create something as ingenious.
However, the Magento team is definitely coming close with their upcoming release of Magento 2.
Magento has been the industry leader among e-commerce platforms for a number of years. According to the latest statistics from Datanyze, Magento currently claims a 25.12 percent market share of the Alexa top 1 million websites, with more than 20,000 websites supported by the platform. Within the last month, nearly 2,000 websites have been launched with Magento. Over its lifetime, Magento has been downloaded a staggering 4 million times.
Magento: Already an industry-leading technology
Before packaged, sliced bread was available, people still ate sandwiches: They just had to slice the bread themselves. Magento 2 will be similar: It's simply a follow-up to something that's already great.
"Providing their clients with world-class service and cutting-edge tools, Magento gives online retailers the ability to take their e-commerce business to a new level," hailed Datazyne.
Magento 2: What's the big deal?
So if the original Magento platform is so great, what's with all the buzz about Magento 2? Scheduled to be released for general availability in Q4 of 2015, it promises to build on the greatness of its predecessor, taking this leading technology to new heights.
"Magento currently claims a 25.12 percent market share of the Alexa top 1 million websites, with more than 20,000 websites supported by the platform."
The Digital PM noted that the Magento team has a number of improvements and advancements in mind for Magento 2, including updates to the technology stack, more simplified external integrations and enhanced performance and scalability. In addition, Magento 2 promises a streamlined customization process, easier installation and upgrading processes and improved testing and documentation resources.
What else can users expect from Magento 2? Let's take a closer look:
- Increased flexibility: With Magento 2, developers and webmasters will have much more flexible resources at their disposal thanks to the platform's use of high code coupling and a component-oriented framework. This allows users to enable or disable all components - including the content management system, checkout process, product catalog and more - simultaneously.
- Improved website testing: Testing is now more important than ever, and Magento 2 seeks to support users' testing needs with a more test-friendly structure. The platform's testing framework enables static and unit tests, performance tests, legacy and migration tests as well as integration tests.
- Streamlined theme customization: While there are thousands of pre-constructed themes available for Magento, developers were faced with a complicated process when they wanted to create a custom theme. These issues have all been addressed by Magento 2's new file structure and module structure base views, allowing users to more easily develop custom themes to suit their unique brand.
- Boosted compatibility: Magento 2 makes it easy to integrate a website with other platforms, and is compatible with the Zend Framework, PHP 5.3, MSSQL, Oracle and range of other databases.
- Enhanced data protection: The Magento team also raised the bar when it comes to security. Magento 2 features a specialized directory enabling users to guard their code against a variety of breach attempts.
The industry is currently buzzing about the release of Magento 2, and for good reason. The platform promises to be even greater than its predecessor, and for the e-commerce sector in particular, it will be the greatest thing since sliced bread.