Here’s the short answer:

  • Our clients love using WordPress
  • We tried other CMS solutions and we’ve found WordPress the most flexible overall
  • The WordPress Community is incredibly active and helpful
  • WordPress is open source and GNU general public licensed (GPL)

Our clients love using WordPress

WordPress gives our clients the power and flexibility to update posts, pages, and content. As WordPress developers, it give us the tools to create powerful web applications with incredible built-in publishing features right out of the box. WordPress has proven itself time and again as a rock-solid platform for the blog, the CMS installation, and the full blown web presence that our clients need to stay on top in their industries.

We have over 100 clients using WordPress. While they publish content on a wide spread of topics and use WordPress for many different reasons, they all appreciate the ability to easily edit their content. A large portion of the editor interface elements are similar to popular office suite software, and clients are often surprised at how their existing software skills and shortcuts seamlessly translate over to publishing content on WordPress. WordPress is very easy to use, which allows more people to contribute, which results in better content, published more often. A great web presence can grow a business.

WordPress Offers Unparalleled Flexibility

When WP Backoffice started we would develop custom websites (as well as web apps) for clients, but there were few tools (at the time) built specifically for the profession. Often times we would be stuck inputting content for our clients because there was no easy way for them to edit their web content. Just like in any industry, where there’s a need people build tools to attempt to fill that need. So along came a whole bunch of apps that claimed to allow website editing for non-web professionals. Keep in mind, this is before there were inexpensive online based content management systems (CMS). Early on we tried out Adobe Contribute. We really liked that it allowed us to use DreamWeaver to code a site and then grant editing access to our clients. But the access was limited to certain areas of the site that were designated as “editable” template areas, so that was an issue. The client would connect to the website using Contribute and make edits to the areas we designated. We could even send the client a Contribute “Key” that would contain all of the server access information, this really saved us a lot of time explaining how to use FTP. So, this was a step in the right direction, but there were obvious drawbacks;

  1. Contribute was proprietary software and the client had to pay to install it on each individual computer.
  2. Following up on number I… The software had to be installed on a computer! It was not web based, so the client had to have access to the computer Contribute was installed on at all times if he/she wanted to update their website. Not so great.
  3. Creating and linking to new pages was hard.
  4. Inserting media was difficult and there was no way to manage media assets.
  5. If there was a feature we needed there was no way to add it. We had to hope Adobe would add it and then pay for an upgrade!

The above are just a few of the laundry list of issues we had while using Contribute and other software of similar ilk. We desperately searched for a better solution when on fortuitous day we ran into WordPress. This was the early days of WordPress so it was primarily used as a blogging platform. However, from the very beginning we could see that if all went well one day it was going to be a kick butt CMS! WordPress had a laser focus on ease-of-use from the admin panel. It was also web based and open source… And since it was open source, the problems we ran into in the short term could be solved with a bit of hacking.

WordPress comes with a flexible framework that makes developing easier

WordPress is written in PHP and uses a MySQL database. It comes chock full of the basic building blocks you need when starting almost any project, for example:

  1. User management, including the ability to have different user roles and password management.
  2. Media management
  3. Content management
  4. And much more!
If that weren’t enough… There are over 20,000 plugins that can extent the functionality of WordPress in almost any direction (from e-commerce to social networking and beyond!). Chances are, if you need certain functionality that WordPress core does not contain, there is a plugin that will get either get you up and running or pretty darn close.

WordPress is open source and GNU general public licensed (GPL)

If you are interested in a great debate about some of the issues surrounding GPL and WordPress check this out: http://mixergy.com/chris-pearson-matt-mullenweg/. In short open source software allows you to get under the hood and make changes. The GPL license says that any work you do modifying GPL code must result in code that is GPL as well. Even bits of code that interact with with GPL code, like plugins for WordPress, must be GPL themselve because they only work when used in conjunction with GPL code. This is enough to make your head spin ;-).

So, Lets step back for a minute. It simply means the code can be used my anyone:

The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software — to make sure the software is free for all its users – http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html[/box]

We here at WP Backoffice think that’s a pretty awesome way to license software. The GPL is very clear legal document. We are glad to have a resource that understands how to codify our own feelings about the code we work on. Why not guarantee others the same rights! GPL just feels like the way things should work.