OCMS 3.0 in the works

I previously had written about my dilemma about upgrading the engine that OCModShop uses.  The OCMS 2.0 CMS engine was written by a friend way back in 2002, and I have been slapping on band-aids and features as they were needed.

My big issue was whether to use a canned CMS or to rewrite the entire thing in .NET 3.0.  Either way would take a long time, and there were pros and cons to each method.

After speaking with other webmasters I have discovered that many successful websites are using WordPress.   Not to make too fine a point on it, but the next version of the website will be based on this technology (although highly modified).

The reason I finally plunged in is because of something John Chow said to me… when he looks at an Internet business he asks how automated it is, and how automated it COULD be.  Although many improvements have been made to the OCMS engine over the years, I don’t have the time (or the money to pay someone) to make it automated to really take the site to the next level.

I’m not too concerned about the performance issues of WordPress, as I’ve overcome many of them with IIS7, and discovered several complex professional sites that are really fast that are based on WordPress.

The new design is already done, and really doesn’t vary too much from the current layout.  It incorporates a ton of “modern” features that we’ve been lacking.

Right now I’m converting the content over, and there is a lot of manual work to be done (even with a database import).  After this lengthy process then I can begin to work on the code.  It will take a while, but won’t take nearly as long as rewriting the site in .NET 3.0