On the 7th anniversary of Magento, the good Yoav Kutner announced the birth of a sibling to the world.
Seven years ago, Magento saw the light of day under the auspices of Kutner and Rubin. And now: Surprise!!!! (even if it was not totally unexpected, it was definitely worth an „Ohhh“…): OroCommerce is moving up. On April 8, the Oro team communicated on its OroCommerce blog and Twitter account @OroCommerce that it could look forward to a rapid increase in followers after this announcement.

Hello world! http://t.co/N6PC2CuFja

— OroCommerce (@OroCommerce) 8. April 2015

The history of Magento is strongly influenced by both men. Shortly after Magento was sold to eBay Enterprise in 2011, Yoav Kutner left the company with the commitment not to launch any other shop system in the following years. This period elapsed … and Kutner was free to start from scratch. Thus, he joined „Oro“ and, using the company’s OroPlatform, developed „OroCRM“, a CRM solution specially designed for the e-commerce sector, and which he, of course, connected to Magento. The OroPlatform succeeds where Xcommerce fails: It connects multiple systems to a single platform, so that CRM, ERP, newsletters, and PIM systems can thereby exchange information.

For his part, Roy Rubin also left Magento right after its sale – and now they are reunited. Indeed, Roy Rubin is now and „advisor“ to OroCommerce, an addition to the company which was announced on April 15, 2015.

And if you were wondering about the purpose of this renewed association… you guessed right: To launch another shop system! They accomplished such feat before with outstanding results, hence we believe that their odds of succeeding this time around are fairly high. Especially, since they now understand the consequences of accelerated growth.
OroCommerce, the new project, is an open source solution specifically designed to meet the B2B market requirements. Let us share some typical examples of B2B requests that have been considered:

• Several price lists (a feature which many ERP systems provide, but that is somehow lacking in shop systems)
• Simple adjustments concerning the (individual) requirements of the ordering process (simple quote-order extensions – every Magento developer is now nodding), slight changes to the order form (more nodding)
• Reporting Tools

In any case, the focus will probably be on configurable and customizable workflows, so that the operator can map its processes in the most flexible fashion.

The base of the whole system will be PHP and Symfony 2 will be used as framework.

Even if OroCommerce has just been announced, I have the feeling it will not take too long coming. And as I read in a funny tweet from Yoaf Kutner: „it would be nice if OroCommerce would start off with version 2.0 ….“

@tim_bezhashvyly @guido i think we will release @OroCommerce starting with version number 2.0.0 😉

— Yoav Kutner (@YoavKutner) 15. April 2015

You can you subscribe to an email list on http://www.orocommerce.com/ to stay up to date. Furthermore, as announced in the newsletter, Oro will be at the Meet Magento event in Utrecht, where it will certainly provide additional information…