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I've been a customer at DNP now for 1,5 years or so and now I have to say that I'm very disappointed with the development of the product. It's a great product, no doubt, but it's standing still and I have to say that's very sad.

Looking back on the release announcements now for exactly one year, during the v2.8.x versions, there is in total almost NONE improvements at all with the base product it self. A few minor things, and added providers for MDaemon v10 and SmarterMail v6, and besides that almost just bug fixes. The only thing that is developed is the enterprise/hyper-v modules. I'm not using a single one of them and intend to not do so either, as long as for example the eCommerce doesn't work. And by that I mean exactly this: "Works!". Right now it doesn't, and the DNP Team doesn't even care - and yet that function is fundamental for our whole businesses. DNP relies on that we use 3rd party software instead such as WHMCS or similar. Pathetic!

Also, I've bought a couple of more servers but right now I'm now buying any more DNP licenses before I see that the basic product lives properly and is continuisly developed, as well as getting a working eCommerce module. I refuse to use (and buy) other software just to fix DNP Team's lazyness/ignorance.

Of course, I understand that the extra modules is needed as well, and I understand DNP makes more money of those. But that's not an excuse for not developing the basic product anymore, giving us customers more value for our money invested. We can't even get any kind of road map (well, ehhh... yes we can - of the enterprise and hyper-v modules, of course.... Duh!).

I'd really like someone from DNP Team to answer this in public and tell us customers what your plans are with DNP. If you intend to NOT make a working eCommerce module (free of charge, not for extra payment as the other modules) then TELL us, so we can switch to another hosting panel (or stay with this one knowing the product is as it is and will not change very much). And by telling us, I mean the basic DNP module - not the ones you're charging extra for; those I could care less about right now since they're not interesting when the basic one doesn't work. I'm not going to buy spare wheels to a car that runs badly...

 I'm aslo agree with you. I cann't see any important improment of the product. Anyway Cpanel going to release Enkompass very soon. Beta alredy been released. 

 I'm pritty much sure, when it release DNP in big trouble. 

It depends (as always). As far I can see Enkompass requires Active Directory for its core server (note required in basic DNP environment) and licensing is per user ("...license will activate Enkompass and keep it running as long as the rental fee is paid..." - http://twiki.cpanel.net/twiki/bin/view/AllDocumentation/EnkompassHelp/DesigningLicensing). In my opinion competition is good and winners here are/will be customers from both sides of competiting companies. I'm personally devoted to DNP and I'm not planning to move to other hosting control panel.

EDIT: Enkompass feature list: http://www.cpanel.net/files/windows/features.pdf. Some of mentioned in PDF file features are quite nice (for me: Restart Users Websites - now user must change something in web.config to make web site app pool recycle, MySQL - Check/Repair a Database, MS SQL - Repair a MS SQL Database, SSL certificate section).

bhiers:

Has anyone played with Enkompass, does it support managing and installing of SSL certs from the panel, and does it support 2 way syncing with SmarterMail? Those are the 2 things I been missing from DNP moving from Helm.

OnionMan:

as the fact no one from DNP has bothered to reply to this thread that raises valid concerns bothers me most.

I agree - it's almost embarrasing now - it's been a week without hearing *** from the DNP Team. As a matter of fact I've bought a couple of new servers that I'd like to buy DNP licenses for as well as a Hyper-V license. But I won't, when the DNP core development seem to be more or less non-existing, and no one from DNP Team can give a roadmap nor answer anything else about development plans for this...

We are an existing customer and have had direct contact and even then they can't tell us what is going on. Such a shame that what is an excellent product is let down by poor communication and lack of development in a key area - ecommerce.

I've now had email communication with DNP Team as well.

Basically: The eCommerce module is under development, re-written from scratch and will instead be a separat "DNP Billing" module (free for existing customers, but don't know if it will be for future customers as well). However, it's a pretty big development process and therefore it will take time for it to be finished. The only time frame is that DNP Team hopes to release it during 2010.

I my own opinion, I think we should expect probably rather in the end of 2010 (or beginning of 2011) than first half year or so of next year. But at least - now we know, and can take our individual actions from there on how to act.

As we provide multiple hosting platform products, I personally couldn't care less about ecommerce(although I can undestand the need is out there) as billing systems like WHMCS will IMO always be better. I'd rather they work on making it work better with external apps and concentrate on making a control panel and control panel only, rather than be a jack of all trades master of none. I dread to think of the features they could of added to the panel with the time they are using to rewrite the ecommerce side.

Control panel companies should stick to making control panel's while billing companies should stick to making billing apps, just imo of course

OnionMan:

Control panel companies should stick to making control panel's while billing companies should stick to making billing apps, just imo of course

I see your point, and it's probably a matter of individual taste. Me, for example, would like to have as few different providers as possible if the different software have to interact with each other. In my experience, that's to ask for problem in the long run if one software is version upgraded and something has changed there that happens to affect the other software, and so on. Also - I'm not personally fond of mixing different environments such as DNP in Microsoft Platform versus WHMCS in PHP/MySQL.

Another perspective is that, in my opinion, one basic eCommerce module as it was intended to be in first place, should definately be included since it is a basic need for Hosters - just as the control panel itself. Then, if someone wants to have a much bigger software for the billing part then the option should of course be there to do so as well. But all I ask for is a very basic billing module included from start... :)

I agree that there is defintly a need for a basic ecommerce module to be included. However a simple billing module should not take years + to make and detract huge development time from the core product.

The underlying problem here is the complete lack of communication from the DNP team regadring the future of the product, and with Enkompass coming out can they afford to carry on like that?

BTW PHP is no longer a scary beast in a Windows environment, in fact some benchmarks have it outpacing it on Linux with the fCGI module. How ever I do get your point and wish there was a decent .Net based billing system. Maybe one day when I get bored I'll make WHMCS.net lol