No doubt Oscomm has been good to us over the last few years and it has been our platform of choice up until quite recently when we switched all new developments to JShop. I've discussed some of the reasons for this in earlier posts.

However, we still have a bunch of successful osc stores running and which need ongoing attention. I've just completed security and "bug-fix" updates to ten stores which has been a bit tortuous due to the varying levels of bespoking – checking that all the various contributions are still functioning has been a chore. Getting clients to understand that these updates are necessary has also been a problem – they don't really like paying for this kind of stuff.

There are more problems on the horizon with php5 and mysql 5 upgrades around the corner – more updates and potentially more client grief.

These types of updates for Oscommerce are still a bit ad-hoc and some of them don't actually work first time which can be frustrating – I'm aware its all for free and so I won't complain too much but you really do need to concentrate hard to ensure you don't mess up big style.

This is where some of the commercial platforms (e.g. JShop) score – updates come out in a timely and coordinated fashion, are really simple to install and work first time. The applications themselves are also built in a more future-proof way so no nasty surprises when your host updates php and mysql!

In conclusion, Oscommerce is just too messy to be viable for us going forward - it helped us set up the ecommerce side of our business very nicely and for which we are very grateful but its time to move on.

Dave