OXID eSales goes Open Source

OXID eSales Goes Open Source

OXID Turns to Open Source to Expand Global Presence

Freiburg, Germany - November 3, 2008 - OXID eSales, a leading European
software etailer, today announced the release of the source code for its
flagship eSales product OXID eShop PE4, to the Open Source world to
create a new Community Edition. The new Community Edition, OXID eShop
CE, will offer the identical software to the latest release of OXID's
proprietary professional edition, OXID PE 4.0, providing a fully
functional out-of-the-box software solution for companies looking to
build an online shop. The Community Edition is available for free
download immediately under the GNU Public License version three (GPLv3).

"Open Source entrants gained traction in the etailer market albeit with
inferior solutions. We felt that by Open Sourcing the core of OXID's
software we could offer the highest quality Open Source eShop available
and lead the new growing market sector," explained OXID CEO Roland
Fesenmayr. "We successfully restructured the company to take full
advantage of the benefits of Open Source development and distribution,
as well as to guard against some of the risks the new business model
brings along. We firmly believe that Open Source is the most effective
way to expand our presence in the global marketplace."

"Moving forward, we have big plans for the new company and the new
community, but we appreciate the scale of the changes we are making and
we find it critical to take one step at a time," elaborated Roland
Fesenmayr. "At this stage we simply want people to download and try the
software, experience the power of OXID CE and ideally join OXID's Open
Source community."  

As OXID eSales AG has streamlined its internal development process to
take full advantage of the rapid pace of innovation and faster product
cycles it expects as an Open Source solution. Furthermore, OXID has
begun adopting a similar business model to some of the most successful
corporate-backed Open Source projects. Throughout all of these changes,
OXID will continue to offer its software under proprietary license for
customers and partners who prefer this option, and will offer a
supplemented Enterprise Edition, OXID EE, with enhanced scalability,
manageability, multi-site functionality and enterprise-grade support
options.

Based on the popular LAMP software stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP);
OXID has a clean, clear, modular architecture that is well suited to the
Open Source development model. Changes to the core software kernel will
remain under the control of OXID, with the company moderating
suggestions from its community for improvements and bug solutions.
Developers can create modules to extend the product and develop new
add-on functionality, with the option to have these quality checked and
certified by OXID. Under the dual-license model, partners will be able
to sell these certified and non-certified modules as proprietary add-ons
to the OXID eShop PE or distribute them under the GPL as add-ons for the
OXID eShop CE Open Source version. 

As a key part of the move forward as an international Open Source
solution, OXID has developed an English-language forum as the focal
point for its new Open Source community. The forum will include an area
for members of the community to upload and share new modules or
extensions that they create on top of the core product. It will also
include community discussion boards for kernel development and
trouble-shooting. OXID has trained technical staff on the forums and
intends to play a key role in nurturing the new Open Source community. 

About OXID
OXID eSales AG provides the most commercially proven, Open Source online
shopping software solution available, backed by a flexible range of
support and licensing options, Software as a service (SaaS) offerings
and additional Enterprise Features. OXID provides a simpler, faster and
cleaner eShop software solution than anything previously available under
an Open Source license. The company is committed to a commercial Open
Source development model based on delivering unrivalled value to its
community, responding fast to capturing the value it receives in return
and innovating even faster to deliver value added products and services
around the core offering. For more information, please go to
www.oxid-esales.com.     

OXID is a registered trademark of OXID AG. All other trademarks and/or
registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.