Highlights from Magento Imagine 2016
Magento Imagine 2016 is a wrap. Imagine is the ultimate opportunity to experience the passion, power, and potential of the Magento ecosystem. For three days, Magento staff, merchants, agencies, and industry partners come together to explore the latest Magento developments, discuss what e-commerce makes possible, and network with one another.
Magento is once again an independent company, no longer part of eBay Enterprise, and this was the first Imagine it has organized on its own since. The theme was “We Are Magento,” and the community took center stage. People who had worked hard for the community over the past year were called up on stage to receive a “Magento Master” award. Below, we’ve rounded up the most important announcements from Imagine.
Magento 2 passes 228,000 downloads
Magento 2 launched this past November, and on April 11, Buckaroo went live with the first release on the new platform. Momentum is building, with developers, agencies, and merchants busy exploring what the platform can do and putting it to work. Magento 2 has now been downloaded 228,000 times, and more than 800 online stores are already live on it.
Magento 2.1: the first full feature release
Now that Magento shares its roadmap in advance, we can look forward to more frequent releases packed with new features. The first full feature release for Magento 2 is scheduled for June of this year. Here are the most important additions.
Staging & Preview
Version 2.1 brings Staging & Preview functionality to Magento Enterprise, so you can review changes to products, categories, content, promotions, prices, and themes before visitors see them. Build an entire campaign in advance, complete with adjusted prices and content such as banners and copy, then schedule it to go live at a time you choose. For marketers, that means far more precise control over campaigns and content. You can also preview changes by date or by campaign to see exactly how the live site will look at any given moment.
New search
Magento 2.1 Enterprise introduces new search functionality powered by Elasticsearch, currently the world’s most widely used search technology. More relevant search results ultimately lead to higher conversion rates. And with built-in support for 33 languages, Elasticsearch is easy to implement and quick to get up and running.
B2B functionality
Finally, Magento Enterprise will gain B2B functionality in the third quarter of 2016. Magento has always focused heavily on the B2C market, but these new features will help it serve B2B businesses much better. They include customer-specific pricing and a quote feature, so customers can request a quote as well as check out directly. More details are expected as the release date gets closer.
Magento Marketplace: the successor to Magento Connect
The new Magento Marketplace launched at Imagine and is now open to the public, replacing Magento Connect. For now, it only lists extensions for Magento 2, but all Magento 1 extensions will also be available there before the end of the year.
The new Marketplace lets you buy extensions directly and manage your licenses in one place. For merchants, that makes switching to a different developer easier, since there’s no need to buy new extension licenses.
Magento will also actively review the quality of the extensions on the Marketplace, so you can be confident they deliver the functionality and quality they promise.
Magento Enterprise Cloud Edition
And finally, Magento announced the new Magento Enterprise Cloud Edition at Imagine. Previously, you needed a Magento Enterprise license and paid separately to host the platform. Now both come together in a single product, so you can get a scalable platform directly from Magento. Hosting runs on Amazon Web Services (AWS), and every Magento installation is available in three different Amazon data centers by default. Even if problems were to occur at two locations, your e-commerce platform would remain online. The platform is also scalable, adding resources as traffic and transactions increase, so your environment stays stable even under peak load. Magento provides 24×7 support for the platform and actively steps in when problems occur or are about to.
