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DNN Corp Takes Over Snowcovered 

After an unsuccessful bid to compete with the most prolific marketplace for DotNetNuke modules and skins, DNN Corp announced yesterday that it acquired Snowcovered.com for an undisclosed sum. As part of the acquisition, Snowcovered’s founder Brice Snow will lead the transition and integration effort and join DNN Corp’s business advisory board. For more details on the takeover and what it means for customers, vendors, and the community, read this blog post by DNN’s Chief Architect Shaun Walker.

More DNN news from the last few weeks:

  • DNN Corp has completed it’s first major reshuffling of personal in years, which is now broken down into trustees, team members, and employees.
  • DNN Corp also announced its Fusion Partner Program, which initially did not fare so well with the community and was therefore quickly revised.
  • Almost drowning in all of the above, DNN Corp added the DotNetNuke Elite Edition to its product offerings. See how it compares to Professional Edition.
  • And the final news item on the Corp front is the launch of premium Developer Support Services. Unlike the product side, these services are competing directly with community-based system integrators and consultants, such as ourselves and many others, who have traditionally provides most of these services. It will be interesting to see how this shakes out.
  • Mitchel Sellers publishes his second “best practices” guide. This time around he focuses on module / extension development. He also paid a visit to the PowerDNN hosting facilities. Interesting read.
  • Mike van der Meulen thinks that the installer should present / force a back-up reminder before upgrading the database. Great idea.
  • After moving to Colorado, Chris Hammond founded the Denver DNN User Group with a first meeting scheduled for October.
  • And speaking of Chris, Joe Brinkman reviews DNN 5 User’s Guide, a new book authored by Chris Hammond and Patrick Renner and published by Wrox.
  • As a follow-up to his Multi-Factor Authentication Provider, Brandon Haynes publishes a  whitepaper “detailing the high-level motivation and approach involved in the creation” of said provider.
  • Have you ever struggled to explain DNN and the concepts behind it to friends, colleagues or clients? Fret no longer as Nik Kalyani put together a neat presentation in story format introducing DNN in a non-technical way. Well done.

In the last few weeks we have seen the first bold moves from DNN Corp after its internal reorganization. As long-time community members, what’s your take on the recent developments? Do you welcome these changes, have your your doubts about DNN Corp’s direction, or it does not affect you at all?




Comments

Rodney Joyce Rodney Joyce says:

I personally am disappointed that SnowCovered sold out to DNN - more competition is healthy for everyone - I can't see any real benefit other than developers not having to list their products twice which is not really a problem...

Tom Kraak Tom Kraak says:

I have not bought anything from Snowcovered for over a year, but instead gone thru module vendors directly.

One important benefit of the takeover might be tighter integration of the marketplace into the DNN web application, meaning that we should be able to browse and install extensions right from within DNN similar to what WordPress offers.

Bruce Chapman Bruce Chapman says:

I think the most positive sign is that this move is an acknowledgement that, for whatever reason, the DNN Marketplace was not working as well as it should.

I'd like to see an upgrade of snowcovered, particularly with some attention to SEO. Very few snowcovered pages rate well for product searches.

In-place product browsing and installation would be nice, but only if done in an intelligent way with better tagging/categorisation. 6 or so top-level categories doesn't have anywhere near enough specialization.

Cuong Dang Cuong Dang says:

What do you think will happen when vendors pump up their prices? :-)

Greg Brown Greg Brown says:

I agree with Rodney - I don't think this was super good for the community. But how bad or good it is for the community greatly depends on the direction PE takes in the future.

I also agree with Tom - I think what is desperately needed is a site that will list DNN modules for sale but directs visitors to the developers site for purchase. 25% and a ten ninety nine is a hefty price to pay just to list your modules where potential customers can see them.

Will Strohl Will Strohl says:

As always, I love your summary posts like this one! Thanks, Tom.

Chad Voller Chad Voller says:

Well done, as usual.

I don't really think this means "monopoly" and "corporate bully" so much as it is a good move to improve everything.

It doesn't seem to me that the DNN corp. is out to punish end-users. This should be a welcome addition to an already globally thriving community.

Just imagine, WordPress like plug-in upgrades!

Bruce Chapman Bruce Chapman says:

As far as selling modules direct to the public - this is pretty easy to do. Snowcovered provides a good way to show your module to a large group of buyers for no upfront cost. That's as good a deal as any around.

With attention to marketing and SEO, it's very easy to outrank Snowcovered, which has been one of it's weaknesses as a store. I offer a small discount for direct purchases over snowcovered/dnn marketplace purchases, this is usually enough to do a decent proportion of direct sales. Some people like using snowcovered because it keeps all their downloads and patches in the one place - the end result is you should just list your modules in all locations and let the customer choose.

Rodney Joyce Rodney Joyce says:

I agree that DNN Corp might improve Snow. What I am worried about is that DNN Corp (quite rightly) are out to make money now - so they could quite easily make fancy plug ins and improvements, but only for the PE customers.

I just feel that the little guys are being pushed out of the DNN market a bit. I used to be a Gold Subscriber, because I could afford it and give something back. I can't afford the lowest PE subscription. I therefore don't have access to any service the Corp (hehe - reminds me of a quote from Starship Troopers - "Men may die - the DNN Corp lives forever") decide to bumb up to premium and not free...

Again, I appreciate that DNN Corp are now a profit-making business and congrats to them - but I'm just concerned about them cornering all the markets.

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