DotNetNuke - 10 years in the making

The popular ASP.NET based content management system, DotNetNuke celebrated it's 10th birthday on December 24, 2012. Over the last 10 years, DotNetNuke has grown from humble beginnings to one of the most advanced products available on the ASP.NET platform.

DotNetNuke was originally launched under the name of IBuySpy as an open source project by Shaun Walker by extending the original IBuySpy Portal, which was at that time offered by Microsoft for free. 

In 2003, the IBuySpy Workshop was renamed to DotNetNuke and a core team of people was formed to build various functional modules and skin templates for the system. It was a huge hit, and a strong community soon developed. The project also achieved a significant milestone when Microsoft provided sponsorship for some of the community activities for DotNetNuke.

 The year 2005 witnessed the launch of 3.0 and 4.0 including the launch of the first DotNetNuke book published by Wrox. Nik Kalyani created the first logo for the application which is still used on the official website of DotNetNuke. DotNetNuke was incorporated into an LLC in 2006 with four founders and two full time contractors after it achieved nearly 1 million download from various countries in 2005.

In 2007, Navin Nagiah joined as business advisor and hosted the first OpenForce conference in Europe. Subsequently, OpenForce was organized in the United States in collaboration with DevConnections. The company officially announced the launch of its own in-house marketplace and claimed 3 million downloads that same year.

DotNetNuke partnered with Microsoft for the development of the CodePlex project in 2008 and organized the second OpenForce conference. The company also got significant funding from investors and conducted a regional OpenForce connect event in Orlando.

The project was distributed solely as a free open source solution until 2009 when the first professional edition was launched. DotNetNuke hosted the third OpenForce DevConnections conference the same year.

DotNetNuke also acquired Snowcovered.com and re-branded it into the official store. DotNetNuke also announced the launch of its partner program along with DNN5 which was code-named Cambrian.

In 2010, DotNetNuke secured more than 1,000 commercial customers for its professional edition and also saw the launch of its enterprise edition along with the second round of funding from investors. It also acquired training materials from Engage Software, open document library and open search from Xepient Solutions. During 2010, DotNetNuke achieved a significant milestone of 5 million downloads.

In 2011, DotNetNuke released versions 6.0 and 6.1 which provided a modern user interface and extensive mobile support. DotNetNuke also signed up service agreements with 2,000 commercial customers. During the year, DotNetNuke organized the first DNNWorld conference and acquired ActiveModules. The company was also listed as one of the companies among the top 500 by Inc Magazine.

As of December 31, 2012, the application received a total of 7 million downloads and secured a strategic alliance with Microsoft to deploy DotNetNuke in the Windows Azure cloud. DotNetNuke also acquired iFinity, a website and software development company headquartered in Queensland, Australia to provide complete URL management solution for the upcoming releases.

The company also organized the second DNNWorld conference and launched MVP program in 2012 to recognize those professionals who are familiar with DotNetNuke and devote time to share their expertise and knowledge among the community.

DotNetNuke currently has more than 1 million community members who frequently participate in discussion forums. The volunteers answer queries posted by users and also help in the development of modules, plugins and skins, besides beta testing new builds before their final release.

"As you can see, since its launch a decade ago, DotNetNuke has made great strides in the ASP.NET industry, achieving many milestones helping customers and developers to reach their goals. We’ll be keeping an eye on what the next 10 years will bring," said Tracey Sheehy, Spokesperson for DotNetNuke.

"Known for its exceptional flexibility, DNN also functions as a web application development framework, using open APIs which allow for easy integration with other applications," mentions Cara Pluff who works as an account manager with Applied Innovations while comparing three other popular content management system/blog platforms.

While comparing Joomla and DotNetNuke, DataSprings, DotNetNuke partner observed that while DotNetNuke has an advantage in core functionality, it lacks some of the third party extensions which make Joomla so appealing. The article also outlines the fact that Joomla's style of administration is not as elegant as DotNetNuke’s in-line editing, and generally the framework is not as flexible.

“Tight integration with existing systems and a usable e-commerce solution out of the box make DotNetNuke a winning formula for companies who want to set up an initial online sales presence,” mentions DataSprings as a conclusion on their comparison article.