Half a million Magento downloads recorded

More than half a million downloads of the Magento e-commerce platform have been made since its launch less than a year ago.

Varien, the company behind the software, added almost 400 community and commercial extensions for the platform have been developed to date, with downloads of these numbering more than 175,000.

It said that thousands of customers now engage in Magento hosting to power their online retail sites.

Roy Rubin, chief executive of Varien, predicted that the next 500,000 downloads are likely to arrive at a quicker pace than previously.

"With the ecosystem of partners, consultants and professionals that we've developed, an enormous pool of Magento knowledge and experience is now available in the marketplace," he said.

Varien recently announced that the latest Magento release now features integration with Google Website Optimizer.

Google's tool allows users to carry out A/B and multivariate testing of their website content and layout and potentially boost conversions.