Megashopper stays the pace with ColdFusion

The biggest challenge in taking a business online is the technology behind the site: it must offer high performance, be scalable to meet demand that grows in spurts and it must be capable of 24x7 functionality.

This is the view of Marthinus Strydom, McCarthy Online CIO and among those who selected Macromedia ColdFusion as the platform for McCarthy Online`s Megashopper retail shopping portal. "Another key consideration for the retail sector is time to market, an issue exacerbated in the online world. ColdFusion cuts development time by half and simplifies management, making the decision a `no-brainer` from a business point of view," he says.

Strydom speaks from experience: "The Megashopper Web site was initially developed using Microsoft ASP technology, but we soon realised that a more robust and scalable solution was required."

Wynand Kunkel, IT manager of McCarthy subsidiary, Eliance, notes that apart from is rapid application development characteristics, ColdFusion exhibits the same attributes that made Cobol great in a bygone era: it protects the programmer from himself. "Features such as `tag completion` prevent developers from leaving strings incomplete and make ColdFusion code far easier for a third-party to debug than ASP code, for example."

The caveat, he says, is that not all Web sites require such functionality. "Companies wanting static Web pages for use as marketing tools or rudimentary information portals rarely need more than standard HTML (HyperText Markup Language) as a platform.

"However, sites on which content must change daily - or, indeed, more frequently - need to interact with a relational database management system (RDBMS) such as Oracle or Microsoft SQL Server. ColdFusion offers built-in integration to RDBMSs that significantly simplifies the Web development task, reducing time to market considerably," adds Kunkel.

An issue close to the heart of Strydom is ROI (return on investment). "Since re-deploying our various business to consumer (B2C) portals on ColdFusion, we have enjoyed a significantly higher ROI than was previously the case," he comments.

Rhetoric aside, Megashopper reached profitability after 18 months of operation which, when seen against the international example of the still unprofitable Amazon.com, is significant. "Statistics drawn from Megashopper reveal a database of 20 000 customers, more than 15 000 line items, 1 000 regular shoppers and an average basket size of R575," says Strydom.

Jeremy Matthews, MD of local Macromedia distributor, Dax Data, says the Megashopper success is mirrored by other B2C sites locally and abroad. "In the retail market the concerns about e-commerce are all the same. Companies want tools that enable them to build and deploy scalable Web applications that integrate browser, server and database technologies. They require open integration with a variety of databases, email directories, XML (eXtensible Markup Language) and enterprise systems, as well as security on every level. And they want to get their applications online in the shortest possible time.

"ColdFusion fits the bill - on all counts. The large proportion of B2C initiatives using the technology and the growing number of B2B sites moving in the same direction illustrates this," concludes Matthews.