I have read this thread with interest, as I've been working with DNN since dnn 1.09 , and worked closely with many of the developers and continue to have a great relationship with them. It's been a road of highs and lows in reference to expectations and outcomes of this product but in spite of rocky road, I still strongly support the project at this stage.
I am currently working on a project which is what I call a 'salvage job' - and doing a lot of that lately based on misinformation that's around with tutorials and videos whereby real working experience is lacking in some areas and while it's ok to assume something is good on some sites, the incorrect approach can and I guarantee it does cause an absolute nightmare to manage. A badly structured dnn site is by far the biggest mess and headach I've seen when comparing to a static website. And how do I know that? I can tell you from cold hard experience of making a mess on some projects early in the piece based on what I 'thought' should work but in reality just gave me nothing but grief for close on 18 months. I feel at times there is a disjoint between developers and users.. eg.. if the developers don't think it's important - then bad luck lady - you're on your own.. and if you don't have developers in house, or those who don't understand the way dnn is written or haven't been in the loop for a while, then you're going to pay - either you pay money to get it right the first time, or you pay the price that many do and have a site that is bloated simply horrible to manage as an administrator. So Step 1 - find yourself a good DNN consultant who knows DNN and can give you some good solid advice on how to approach a solution. I'm sure there are a few good ones around who would agree with me even if they never publicly admit so.
I wrote a flash paper ( a word doc save to swf format) that outlines using dnn as a business model and what it's strengths are from my perspective only. I have learnt the hardest way possible by running a business without a developer on tap - fortunately I have access to some of the best developers around and have good and not so good experiences with them too, as with anything, but in general, the calibre of these guys is second to none - I love them... they are talented people who understand and believe in dnn as an ideal 'framework' in which to develop solutions on, and that's how it should be looked at. Back in July I requested interest by developers for partnerships and will be announcing them soon.
I remember one site which was launched and in peak time gets hundreds of thousands of hits at any one time, and is managed through over 20 load balanced servers and apart from the fact I think the site is hideously ugly, I am very impressed with the fact it works as well as it does. I can remember visiting it the day it was launched at the beginning of the season and knowing it's history and what's involved with it, I am still very impressed that a site of that size graphicaly and content wise is in fact a fast and dynamic site. But if they didn't hook up with a key developer who's knowledge of performance is one of the best around, I doubt it would be running as well, in fact it wasn't really working until he helped sort out some issues. But the point is, there was an answer, a developer able to solve the problem and it continues to be one of the most highly visited sites in Australia at certain times of the year. But this site cost around 1 million dollars - which, if you take that thought into consideration - it should help give confidence that dnn was chosen over a linux solution. While I can't be sure, I feel that the excellent BSD licensing put in place by Shaun Walker has helped impact on companies see this solution. So in the mix of things, when developers look at the structure of what DNN has to offer, I can see why they choose it. Take into consideration the integration of the developers tools available, it's not surprising to see many people switching to dnn as a 'solution'.
But will this last? I have many resellers - they have come to me from various developer and marketing backgrounds, and in particular I need to note that people are demanding a better looking site and no longer accepting the 'canned' cms look which many solutions have forced their users to accept so there is a shift in how a developer is viewed.. he has a role, and so does the designer, marketer, SEO companies and site administrators. I think at this stage, DNN has the edge over others in this area, but like anything, unless they continue to wow people with something, who's to say that in another 3 - 5 years, there won't be other better looking and as easy to theme / skin open source projects around.
The guys selling DNN which I setup, deploy, build and then host have all complained abou the same thing - other solutions don't look as good as DNN when finished, or they all look the same on every site. But DNN isn't as 'compliant' or XHTML compatible as other products and I know I'll probably get a few more enemies when I say this - I don't care.. I don't care as much now as I have come to the grand conclusion that most of people who care are those who are the purists from other CMS products who are trying to make DNN like what they had and I say - if it's such an important issue for you - then use another products. Which is where balance and purpose and looking at a 'solution' is a better perspective.
And when I say I don't care - I don't mean it in a casual or flippant way - I chose dotnetnuke as my solution for my clients and every single client I've asked about when it comes to XHTML compliancy - they don't care, and not saying I shouldn't, but they will not pay me the money to make a design more compliant, and once they put in all their content, unless they have a solid knowledge of xhtml , it won't remain that way, and I'm not an expert on xhtml but I do believe there are holes in that as well, which restricts what you can do with it, so around in circles we go and now I sasy - if you don't like it, go find something else - there are plenty of solutions out there to fit the bill.
Another feature about DNN which I appreciate is that it does reside happily with other .net 2 framework solutions, and there are wrappers and providers for you to hook in some solutions - naturally this isn't going to suit everyone, but for example I chose not to use the email manager or the banners for a site so I can implement a third party solution and they reside in their own folder, but the dll's reside in the bin folder along with the other dnn dlls. (obviously naming and folder issues here are relevant) but my point is, you have choices. So if you can't find a solution to suit everything in DNN, you may be able to find other options to fit the bill and reside under same url.
Talking about urls - there is another element of DNN that impresses me - and that is the ability to integrate products / forums/ stores within the solution. Most other solutions have addons which have no real relationship to the site except sharing a subdomain and yet the membership functionality of DNN is of great appeal to many who want to 'add on' solutions. I think it's a sterling product if you want to build it out further as well, giving you the opportunity to work step by step on a site - get it launched, add the features as required, because one thing I've found with the world (that's broad now) everyone changes their mind, ideas get scrapped, feature creep can become a problem, but with DNN it's very possible to put a bit of a stop on it by creating very achievable steps along the way which the clients are visually involved with. (this is just my opinion ok)
When it comes to upgrading - I'm in two minds - I have a couple of DNN 1 dbs - one which is getting switched to DNN 4 very soon, a couple of DNN2 dbs, quite a few DNN3 dbs and mostly DNN 4 dbs, but overall I've got about 100 databases I manage myself, with around 300 sites including some sites with 70 - 100+ child portals/sub domains, and I can tell you in reality I wouldn't have a snowflakes hope in hell to keep everyone on the same build. My attitude is this - if you build it for one version, unless there is a specific reason to upgrade it, then just leave it. It is also another opportunity to visit the project and resell them at a later date. Of course every client is different, and if they are paying you to keep the site updated then that is different, but many of these sites tick along beautifully. They just do their job and the customers are happy. I've recently committed to a full rack for hosting now - but we're aso diversifying as I also manage about 700 mail accounts and to be honest, we're putting in a control panel so I can get a bit of a break - the amount of time I have in site maintenance these days is more than I care to do, and if I want to triple my hosting and sites, there isn't enough of me to do this, so moving to a datacentre with our own rack and access and IP class and firewall and monitoring means that the most logical step is a control panel.
I could go into logistics of how to make child portals parents, how they are all managed, what is where, and how the databases are handled, but then I'd never get finished writing and I know I know, my posts are long and wordy but I'm really writing what I think at the time about something that is very important to me, and that is - being able to provided a series of answers and suggestions to help those who are thinking of using DNN as a solution and are hungry for as much as they can read to help make a decision. When looking at something at this level, you can never get enough information can you?
I have strong personal views on things, but am always open to suggestions and new ideas, but these days am experiencing more of the... 'show me the money' ... eg.. show me the evidence of whaty you're saying here, and how, if you had the same setup as me, would you go about it.... I think it gives perspective on things as the majority of people coming into DNN have no real idea on what it's like to run it as a business and if I can help cut out some of the pain and misery 'inexperience' has taught me,then you'll love the solution as much as many of our community members.
Do I have problems, of course I do, and so does everyone here on this forum. But if you look on other forums you'll find exactly the same - it's just another label for the same poison. I say - DNN is ready for prime time if you get the right advice, set yourself up with the smart people around you and take advantage of the power of opensource. This is a good licensing model, there are many tools developers have to work with, it's a fine product and while I continually look at other solutions that are presented to me or sent to me and just wanting to keep abreast of what's available, I still stand with hundreds of thousands of others in supporting and working with it.
Ok - enough typing - or I'd talk for days about DNN and the reality of running a business with it... but I hope this gives you an insight.
Nina Meiers
My Site - My Blogs - Goodies - Lots of Free DNNSkins - Nina's MVP Profile