It’s been a very long time in the making. Originally announced in 2010 and mooted for 2011 (!), we’ve just recently started to see some solid movement on this project. So we thought it may be time to introduce you to it, its benefits and discuss how we can help with the upgrade process once it’s publically available.
The process is expected to move throughout the year, from a developer beta released Q1, to a merchant beta by Q3 (so you, your team or your agency can start to play around with it) and general availability is expected in Q4.
What’s new?
The stated goals for Magento 2 include:
- Updating the technology stack
- Streamline the customisation process
- Simplifying the process for external integrations
- Improving the scalability and performance
- Improvements to the installation procedure
- Easier upgrade process
- The delivery of better quality, testing resources, and documentation
It’s now responsive out of the box – from the default theme onwards. With Google placing increased importance on a good mobile experience – not to mention the looming algorithm change they’ve announced – this is an important development. I believe a previous issue with moving extensions to Magento 2 from a 1.x version has been solved, I’m seeking confirmation on this.
We’re now working on modern technologies such as HTML5, CSS3 and jQuery. One unkind commenter called it ‘nothing more than a rewrite with jQuery’, but it’s much more than that. In any case, the modernisation effort is very important too of course.
Other changes are deep into the developer world of things, so if you require more information take a look over the changelog or release notes.
It’s hard to compete with Magento 1.x, could Magento 2 be truly unbeatable? That remains to be seen, but we’re definitely very excited about it.
How do we upgrade to Magento 2?
It’s not publically available yet, but when it is we’ll be providing an upgrade service. Our experienced development team can walk you through a Magento version upgrade, testing, backup, go live and troubleshooting. All set out in a best practise format to minimise your downtime and any headaches!
Watch this space! We’ll be closely following the development of this new version and will most likely be trying out early versions of it ourselves.