By Amanda Watkins, Marketing Communications Manager at InteractOne
Magento 2.1 is still pretty sweet, even with its imperfections.
Over the last year, we noticed some casual unrest within the Magento community as we all eagerly awaited to reap the rewards of sticking with the number 1 eCommerce platform in the world. When Magento 2 was released at the end of 2015, there was a lot of excitement and so much to look forward to. We were wide-eyed and hopeful that Magento’s decision to launch Magento 2 (even though we knew it wasn’t totally ready) would be the best thing to happen for us as a development partner and for the community as a whole.
We were enthralled with Magento 2. We held webinars, wrote blogs and built landing pages touting how great it was. We were set. We were ready.
Then 2016 happened.
The first half of 2016 wasn’t easy. In a lot cases, we were talking with clients and prospects advising them to wait to upgrade. We explained that Magento 2 just wasn’t ready due to bugs being worked out and extensions needing built. The first half of the year felt like a stale waiting game. While we waited, we optimized and maintained Magento 1.x sites with the hope that when Magento 2 was ready, we could easily upgrade our clients.
Towards the middle of the year, and with the release of Magento 2.1, we were finally able to start confidently building new sites in Magento 2. By the end of the year, we were starting to remember those positive feelings we had started 2016 out with. It was coming together and Magento was going to feel great again.
Here’s looking at 2017.
When we read the very real and honest post from our good friend Karen Baker at WebShopApps last month, we felt her frustrations and concerns in every way. The first half of 2016 was frustrating and we hope that Magento is working to make things better. We were also pleased to see that important folks within Magento offered some responses to valid concerns here and here.
We’re continuing into 2017 wiser and more prepared. We know and believe Magento is going to stick around and we’re going to stick with the platform we’ve been with since its inception. There are other tempting eCommerce platforms to watch and definitely keep an eye on, but for now, we’re still sweet on Magento.
As a long time Magento partner, we’re still very excited about Magento 2 and we’re ready to help merchants make the jump. If you want to talk strategy for your next eCommerce move, contact us or give us a call (513) 469-3361.