What is Zope?

Zope is an Open Source application server and portal toolkit used for building high-performance, dynamic Web sites.

How does Zope fit into the marketplace?

Zope competes in three segments of the application server market:

1) Commercial application servers where the competition includes products such as Cold Fusion, Silverstream, Netscape Application Server, and others. This is a crowded market focused on two areas: Java and relational databases.

2) Free development systems and Open Source software. This includes free products such as PHP, mod_perl. In fact the dominant product in all market segments is the one built in-house, which is often constructed with free tools.

3) Portals and content management systems. Examples of portals include Glyphica and Portera. Content management systems include Frontier (which we are often compared to) and Vignette (which we come across often in competitive consulting bids).

Who is using Zope?

The technology running Zope has been used by Digital Creations over the course of the last three years in projects for the federal government, over 80 regional newspapers, and the telecommunications industry. Specific examples are available on the Zope website.

Zope's real strength lies in its active developer community, which currently stands at over 500 people.

Who is it intended for?

Zope is aimed at three different types of customers:

1) Content manager. These are people that know tools like HTML editors, Windows Explorer, and Word. They now want to migrate up to more powerful web functionality or participate in a more powerful system.

2) Developer. Programmers that know technologies like relational databases, object oriented programming, and serious web development can use Zope to create content that is managed by content managers.

3) Information architects. These are managers of business units that make the decisions about web architectures, how to deploy their business online, and how to reach out to their customers and other stakeholders.

How is Zope different?

Zope has a number of qualities that significantly differentiate it in the marketplace. These advantages support our philosophy of "Unleashing Potential".

1) Open Source. Zope is run on an Open Source philosophy. The software platform is free and customers have complete control over using it and modifying it. We strongly believe that application servers and portals are "bet the business", mission-critical decisions. Customers should be in control of their architecture and not be held hostage to technology vendors.

2) Portal toolkit built on application server. The current portal strategies are focused on "portal in a box", where you get to do what they let you do. Also, the portal software market isn't directed toward collaboration, rather on blasting internal corporate information. Zope adds portal toolkit functionality (news, search, directory, membership) to an already-differentiated application server. Moreover, these portal features are integrated in a way that leverages the coherence of the Zope architecture for unleashing potential.

3) Through the web management. Zope is completely managed through the web and uses the web object model as its design. This dramatically changes the rules, as participation in adding value can be extended to anyone, anywhere. Zope's integrated object database follows this philosophy, as it is organized like the folders in a filesystem and managed with a Windows Explorer-like interface.

4) Safely delegate control. Keeping up with the high velocity of business these days requires turning control over to others, but in a safe way. Zope's unique framework provides a safety net, including access control, undo, private versions, and more.

Does Zope write the output to files to be delivered by a Web server?

No it doesn't. As an application server, Zope serves up every request dynamically. Web users are connecting to real objects running in the Zope object system.

What platforms does Zope run on?

Digital Creations develops Zope on Linux/Intel and supports Zope on Linux/Intel, Solaris (SPARC and Intel), and Windows. Zope has been ported to Digital Unix, BSDI, HP/UX, FreeBSD, NetBSD, SGI/Irix, HP-UX, and many others.

What databases does it support?

The integrated object database by default uses the file system to manage its data. It can also be layered on top of other storage managers, such as bsddb or relational databases. Zope also allows content managers and programmers to easily integrate data managed in an external database. Oracle, Sybase, MySQL, ODBC, Postgres, Solid, and Adabas adapters have been developed.

What Web servers does it support?

The Zope object publishing system was designed to hide plumbing details, which makes it easy to add support for various servers. Apache, Netscape, IIS, and OpenMarket are all supported in Digital Creations' consulting services. In addition, the object publishing system includes its own high-performance Web and FTP server. This can be extended to cover other protocols such as POP3, IMAP and the like.

What is Python?

Python is an interpreted, interactive, object-oriented programming language. It is often compared to Tcl, Perl, Scheme or Java. It combines remarkable power with clear syntax and is available for every conceivable platform. For more information, check out the www.python.org site.

Zope is written in Python with C extensions for critical performance improvements. However, the Zope Template system allows powerful applications to be created without any knowledge of Python. The use of Python is a distinct, competitive advantage for Zope over commercial offerings. It makes casual Zope product enhancement and development a snap, and allows for deep product development coherent, cohesive and productive.

With Zope as a free, Open Source product, how does Digital Creations generate revenues?

Through consulting and other services. Zope was the natural result of refining Digital Creations' business strategy after its first round investment. Additional details are available at the Digital Creations Web site.