Magento 'leader of the e-commerce pack'

Open-source application adoption continues to significantly rise and Magento is "leading the pack" in the e-commerce sector, one publication has suggested.

Magento has experienced more than 750,000 downloads and Cnet asked Roy Rubin, the founder and chief executive officer of Varien - the firm behind Magento - about its success.

Mr Rubin said that billions of dollars in online transactions are conducted by tens of thousands of merchants who use Magento and the e-commerce hosting platform will reach one million downloads by the end of this month.

In the first eight weeks after the Enterprise Edition Subscription launch, over 7,000 merchants contacted Magento to find out more.

"Magento offers the same functionality as leading enterprise-class proprietary software providers in the e-commerce market but at ten per cent to 20 per cent of the cost and much faster time to market," he told the technology publication.

Using Magento as an e-commerce platform could be strategically important after research for PayPal UK found that the UK's online retail sector will be the only one to post growth before 2012.

Written by Greig Daines