Modular Software IS Web 2.0

At the end of September I was asked to participate in a first of its kind event at the Excalibur Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, NV, USA.

Hosted by FlatBurger, a Web 2.0 Startup with a great idea (for whom I now consult full time), the Modular Software Conference 2006 was an invite only event that brought together a group that had, until that moment, worked closly together in the virtual world but had never been in the same room with each other.

These Modular Software developers all had at least two things in common. 1. They all develop software 'plug-ins' or "Modular Software" for the DotNetNuke(tm) platform (I'll get into what DotNetNuke is in a little bit) and 2. Unlike many DNN developers out there they do it for a living. (www.FlatBurger.com/ModSoftCon)

DotNetNuke (www.DotNetNuke.com) is a open source hosted application infrastructure that runs on the Windows ASP.NET platform. Primarily in use today as a content management, knowledge management or collaboration platform, the DNN community is growing by leaps an bounds each day. As I write this Blog at 2pm on Wednesday the 8th of November the DNN community was at 357,759 and growing by about 500 per day!).

DotNetNuke describes itself as “…an Open Source Framework ideal for creating Enterprise Web Applications”. The DotNetNuke developers I spoke with seem to agree and they are cranking out modules to help webmasters and corp developers alike to create compelling, rapidly changing, extremely flexible web based applications that help users participate as much as possible in the decision making of their companies. True Web 2.0 stuff.

Even Microsoft is taking notice and has been focusing some good resources not only on their own collaborative suit, the Microsoft SharePoint Portal solution but also on the DotNetNuke community since it rides on top of Windows and ASP.NET in a hosted environment.

FlatBurger is an interesting third party in the mix that provides services and technology to this ecosystem of modular software developers to help them protect their IP (open source or not), manage their licensing scheme and providing these developers with the tracking billing system that gives them to power to present end users with a Software as a Services (SaaS) model only paying as you go. (I’ll cover more about FlatBurger is subsequent posts).

For now, check out the videos up on www.FlatBurger.com/ModSoftCon and let me know what you think, that voice of the interviewer is me!

--Ken