Disadvantages

• Subscription based licensing (Not a big deal for most companies, but for capital based accounting, not so good)
• Won’t be covered by Microsoft’s 10 year support lifecycle
• You’ll have to keep your platform a little more current (I know a lot of sites still using Commerce Server 2000)

Advantages

• Substantial decrease in cost
• More aggressive release cycle (I would expect every 6 months or so)
• Not bound by Microsoft’s development policies
• We should start seeing integrated components like PayPal, Amazon, etc..
• Faster releases
• Better testability with releases
• Improved delivery format
• More personal experience for partners and developers
• When dealing with the non-Giant firms, your relationship is more personal and valuable
• Ascentium has committed to delivering the product and has a great road map

Reasons

This is only speculative but here’s my take. I imagine several higher ups in Microsoft sat in a room and realized simply that there weren’t many new Commerce Server customers, why?, because the product was becoming dated. So, what to do, this is what I would have done… (And what I believe they did…) Well, we can transfer the development of Commerce Server to a partner, for all the reasons above, and keep a good enterprise e-commerce platform that runs on the Microsoft Stack, and we’ll still get the licensing revenue for Windows Server, SQL Server, BizTalk, and possibly SharePoint. All is all, a good decision on the part of Microsoft, whether it went down this way or not.

Summary

So in summary, while there are few disadvantages, I feel the advantages far outnumber the negative. One key thing that was never listed on either side was customer perception. This could swing either way, many customer are comfortable with the Microsoft product lifecycle and even depend on it. Other customers however, feel that Microsoft wasn’t allowing them to be competitive, falling behind the competition. Being that Commerce Server is still being developed by the same “people” as it was before, the product will be the same strength.

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Microsoft Visual Studio
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Could not load file or assembly ‘Microsoft.SqlServer.Management.Sdk.Sfc, Version=10.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89845dcd8080cc91′ or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.
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Simply download and install the following components.

Microsoft SQL Server System CLR Types – http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=123721&clcid=0×409

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Management Objects – http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=123708&clcid=0×409

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Native Client – http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=123717&clcid=0×409

I run into this quite a bit when working on client provided developer workstations and they don’t find the need in installing a local SQL Server or the management objects.

The other alternative is to simply download and install SQL Server Management Studio.

The production version of ODAC 11.2 Release 4 (11.2.0.3) has arrived for Entity Framework and LINQ developers! It includes 32-bit and x64 versions with the option of using an automated installer or xcopy deployment.

The release incorporates Oracle Database client 11.2.0.3, which can access Oracle Database 9.2 and higher. Oracle supports Entity Framework and LINQ with Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4, including Entity Framework 4.1 and 4.2.

• Download ODAC 11.2 Release 4
  • 32-bit ODAC with Oracle Developer Tools for Visual Studio (required for Entity Framework development)
  • 32-bit ODAC xcopy
  • x64 ODAC installer and xcopy
• Article: Use Entity Framework with ODP.NET
• ODAC 11.2 Release 4 Documentation

ODAC New Features List

It is with great pride we announce that Bradley Foley has been awarded as a Microsoft® Most Valuable
Professional (MVP) for 1/1/2012 – 1/1/2013. The Microsoft MVP Award is an annual award that recognizes
exceptional technology community leaders worldwide who actively share their high quality, real world expertise
with users and Microsoft. All of us at Microsoft recognize and appreciate Bradley’s extraordinary contributions and
want to take this opportunity to share our appreciation with you.

I do with to keep working within the community, either with Commerce Server, or perhaps its time I learn a new trade. Who knows only time will tell.

System requirements

Supported Operating Systems: Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2, Windows Vista Service Pack 2

• 32-bit systems
  • Computer with Intel or compatible 1GHz or faster processor (2 GHz or faster is recommended.)
• 64-bit systems
  • 1.4 GHz or faster processor
• Minimum of 1 GB of RAM (2 GB or more is recommended.)
• 2.2 GB of available hard disk space

So here we go….

First we’re going to create a simple structure to represent the user information we need:

        public struct UserInfo
        {
            public string DisplayName;
            public string Mail;
            public string Login;
        }

Next were going to create a simple entry point in which we will use to test our methods:

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    ArrayList ar = GetADGroupUsers("GroupName");

    List<UserInfo> users = new List<UserInfo>();
    foreach (string user in ar)
    {
        users.Add(GetADUserInfo(user));

    }
}

Now we will need to implement the two methods seen above. First the method to get all the users in a group:

static public ArrayList GetADGroupUsers(string groupName)
{
    SearchResult result;
    DirectorySearcher search = new DirectorySearcher();
    search.Filter = String.Format("(cn={0})", groupName);
    search.PropertiesToLoad.Add("member");
    search.PropertiesToLoad.Add("mail");
    search.PropertiesToLoad.Add("samaccountname");
    result = search.FindOne();

    ArrayList userNames = new ArrayList();
    if (result != null)
    {
        for (int counter = 0; counter <
                 result.Properties["member"].Count; counter++)
        {

            userNames.Add((string)result.Properties["member"][counter]);
        }
    }
    return userNames;
}

Now that we have the ArrayList of users, we will need to get the information about the users:

static public UserInfo GetADUserInfo(string userName)
{
    SearchResult result;

    DirectoryEntry de = new DirectoryEntry("LDAP://mydomaincontroller/"+userName);

    UserInfo ui = new UserInfo();
    ui.DisplayName = de.Properties["displayName"].Value.ToString();
    ui.Mail = de.Properties["mail"].Value.ToString();
    ui.Login = de.Properties["sAMAccountName"].Value.ToString();
    return ui;

}

And that’s it, now we have a nice list of users with their email addresses.

Where To Start:
First you need to find the CommerceSharePointExtensibilityKit.zip file located at C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Commerce Server 9.0\Extensibility Kits
In this file you’ll see two Visual Studio solution files. I’m a fan of VS2010, so we’ll work with that, although it isn’t what these solutions were meant for.

Open the SharePointCommerce solution. Allow Visual Studio to do it’s conversion. You’ll now need to add the two other projects Common and SharePointCommon. They are located in the named directories from the base solution directory, you shouldn’t have any issues finding them.

Create your own SNK file:
Create a small console application with a SNK of your own choosing. Add signing to the project, then retrieve the PublicKeyToken for later use.

Replace the SNK file:
Copy your SNK file over the built in file MSSharedLibSN1024.snk, don’t delete rename, this will just create more work for you later.

Perform the following Search and Replace Operations within all files in the solution:

Search For:
Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35

Replace With:
Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=<YourKeyHere>

Search For:
Culture=Neutral, Version=1.0.0.0, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35

Replace With:
Culture=Neutral, Version=1.0.0.0, PublicKeyToken=<YourKeyHere>

Manually Edit this file:
CommerceSharePointExtensibilityKit\SharePointCommon\FeatureActivation\CommerceFeatureActivationJobDefinition.cs Line: 1836
"Microsoft.CommerceServer.Interop, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=<YourKeyHere>" 

Replace with:
"Microsoft.CommerceServer.Interop, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35"

Now you will be able to build the entire solution, create the three WSP’s used by the custom installer, and use their handy tool to provision the site.

I haven’t heard any announcement other than that.

I will see what I can find out and post more… But the Standard and Enterprise editions are both there for download.