April 5, 2007; 04:00 AM Lumen Software, a leading provider of
commercial open source Software-as-a-Service ( SaaS ) and portal
solutions, today announced its flagship platform, Lumenation, and the
Lumenation Software Development Kit ( SDK ), are available immediately
for free download. The products give PHP and AJAX developers a way to
rapidly build, deploy, manage, and sell SaaS applications.
Lumen’s
SaaS platform is in use by more than 200 commercial customers with over
150,000 users of on-demand applications. Lumen’s focus on the world’s
5 million PHP developers validates the work of industry pioneers
SugarCRM, developers of a large CRM application written in PHP, and
Zend, creators of the world’s most popular PHP application platform.
Lumenation is the industry’s first PHP platform to focus on SaaS
developers, making PHP an effective alternative to proprietary SaaS
development platforms such as Saleforce’s AppSpace and Microsoft’s Live
Core.
“Lumenation is a superior alternative to proprietary
SaaS development languages because the product’s flexibility and
openness make development of web-based on-demand applications quick and
inexpensive,” said Doug Clark, Managing Partner at RDClark Associates,
a Kansas City based independent systems integrator. “Lumenation is easy
to customize for people with very basic programming skills. I can
easily make a profit for my business by selling commercial Lumenation
applications and customization services to smaller sized companies or
workgroups within larger organizations.”
In March, market
analyst firm IDC released a survey of over 1,000 small- to medium-sized
businesses, in which between five and 15 percent said they were
considering adopting a SaaS solution in the next 12 months.
But
Jeff Kaplan, managing director at THINKstrategies, a SaaS consultancy
that looks at the level of interest in SaaS among organizations of all
sizes, said his research indicated much higher levels of interest.
“The SaaS market for SMBs is huge,” said Kaplan. “Our surveys show more
than 40 percent of small and medium businesses are looking into their
SaaS options. From small business owners’ point of view, faster
time-to-deployment and lower infrastructure costs are driving SaaS
adoption,” Kaplan added. “For these reasons, many businesses and
programmers will find the low cost and agility of open development
platforms, like the Lumenation environment, to be preferable to
expensive, proprietary alternatives.”
“Due to the cost-effective
open source infrastructure of Lumenation, a new group of smaller
businesses can now get customized SaaS and web-portal applications
quickly and at a reasonable cost,“ said Tad Gordon, CEO of Lumen
Software. “Unlike Salesforce.com and other big vendors that are pushing
vendor-specific languages and charging both vendors and customers
upfront and recurring fees, Lumen is offering businesses and developers
a straightforward and practical alternative: use Lumenation, get the
benefits of PHP, Linux, Apache, and pay for commercial SaaS
applications only when you need them.”
The Lumenation portal
is based on the familiar “desktop” metaphor, and the Lumenation SDK
empowers developers of all levels, from expert to novice, to quickly
create and deploy new enterprise-class applications according to their
business needs.
Key features and functionality include:
• Automated installer for Linux, Apache, PostgreSQL and PHP infrastructure stack; • Freely available and fully functional Lumenation SaaS application server and Lumenation SDK; •
Advanced managed web-desktop metaphor with graphical drag and drop,
click and launch, functionality for any application or file; • Available as a software application that runs in the datacenter or as a hosted SaaS portal.
Hundreds of commercial applications are already available for the Lumenation portal. Examples include:
• Small Business Retail Management Suite; • Help Desk Management System; • Content Management System; • Student Information Management System; • Enterprise Portal; • Online File Management System.
Pricing and Availability Lumenation and the Lumenation SDK are immediately available for free download at http://www.lumensoftware.com
. Support and professional service contracts are available directly
from Lumen Software. Commercial applications can be purchased based
either on a perpetual license or a monthly subscription.
About Lumen Software
Lumen
Software develops and sells open source and commercial SaaS and web
portal software. With over 150,000 installed users and an active
community, Lumen’s flagship product Lumenation is leading the way for 5
million PHP developers to rapidly deploy SaaS and portal applications.
Built on top of Linux, Apache, PostgreSQL and PHP ( LAPP ), Lumenation
is freely available for download and unlimited use. Commercial modules
are also available for sale to small and medium sized businesses as
well as ISP’s and ASP’s that want to further reduce development and
deployment time. Founded in 1999, Lumen Software is headquartered in
Kansas City and is online at http://www.lumensoftware.com .
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