Last week I traveled to Sofia, Bulgaria to visit Telerik HQ and the Sitefinity team. This was my 3rd trip to Bulgaria and Telerik HQ. My trips have always coincided with the DevReach conference. DevReach is a .NET focused conference organized, in part, by Telerik.
Telerik is a very globally distributed company and, by necessity, we’ve learned to virtually collaborate. However, I’ve always valued the yearly opportunities to see my colleagues face to face. It also allows me to quickly get a lot of information which, ordinarily, would involve dozens of emails or conference calls.
The team has grown, a lot
I had previously mentioned that the Sitefinity team is now Telerik’s largest product team. However, it wasn’t until I convinced everyone to take a break for a photo opportunity that I realized how much this team has grown:
In the past year the Sitefinity team has grown a lot. However, it isn’t just in numbers that the team has grown; our processes have also matured. In case you don’t already know, Telerik has a new Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) product called TeamPulse. We’ve accumulated a lot of tools & expertise while pursuing this product. The lessons we’ve learned are being used to improve all Telerik teams (Sitefinity included).
Setting the stage for 2011
A big part of 2010 has been focused setting the stage for Sitefinity’s next evolution. That stage is now set. This not only includes the code base (a fresh code base, free from baggage), but also the staffing and processes needed to bring Sitefinity to the next level.
And now we are very close to the next chapter. The plan is to launch Sitefinity 4.0 in mid-December. Based on my conversations, this looks very likely to happen. This ramp up to release will start next month (November 2010) with the RC release. With this release we’ll also announce pricing & licensing details for 4.0 as well as some surprises.
And now I’m back…
It was a great week, but I’m now back and focused on the upcoming RC release and the final release.
In the meantime, Josh Morales is keeping the Sitefinity blogs busy while I’ve been away. Josh has a fresh perspective on 4.0 and he’s been exploring the differences between 3.x and 4.0 in his blog posts. Be sure to check it out!
Also, if you’re curious who is who in the photo above, be sure to check out our Facebook Sitefinity page.