Mambo earns Giant Killing Reputation at LinuxWorld Expo

The Mambo website self-publishing phenomenon has furthered its giant-killing reputation by taking two major awards at the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo, in Boston, yesterday (Tuesday, 15 Feb 2005)

The powerful, free point-and-click website solution won the "Best of Show" award and also "Best Open Source Solution" category. This is a remarkable milestone for the Mambo team, as the competition included industry giants from around the world.

Divided into 14 product categories, the LinuxWorld Product Excellence Awards represent major areas of innovation in the Linux and Open Source Community. Judges were from LinuxWorld Magazine.

The "Best of Show" award, which recognises the best total industry solution, was presented to Mambo for "Mambo 4.5.1". Mitch Pirtle, of Brooklyn, New York, accepted the awards on behalf of Mambo.

Mambo project leader Andrew Eddie first heard the news from his office in the rural regional Australian city of Toowoomba. Asked if Mambo winning was something like David knocking over Goliath, he agreed. "To win the best of show against commercial behemoths like Red Hat, Novell, Sun, HP, Computer Associates and IBM just
shows what a small, committed team of developers can produce," he said.

He agreed the award and the recognition it brings is "a coming of age" for Mambo as an open source software solution. "It is acknowledgement the Linux industry as a whole considers Mambo to be a rising star," he said. "It proves you don’t have to be an industry giant to produce a quality product."

Late last month Mambo announced the renewal of its ties with Miro International, the founder and copyright owner of Mambo technology. The joint venture sees alignment of Mambo project creativity with the significant resources of Miro.

Miro CEO Peter Lamont, of Melbourne, Australia, said news of the awards from pre-eminent industry peers raises the credibility and acceptance of Mambo. "This places Mambo in a unique position of credibility and acceptance," Mr Lamont said. He said the award recognises Mambo as a "legitimate and well-respected alternative to massively expensive commercial solutions that offer little in return."

Miro and Mambo have formed a steering committee, a non-profit association, which will ensure the Mambo project remains Open Source but is well supported through certification, training and marketing.
ensure the Mambo project remains free as source code but is well supported through certification, training and marketing.

Was he surprised to win against the likes of IBM, Sun, Novell, etc...? "Yes I was, however Mambo is a brilliant concept, skillfully implemented," Mr Lamont said. "It addresses basic problems that everyone trying to publish on the web face. Removing the complex nature of the Internet and replacing it with a simple, yet powerful interface has allowed ordinary people to do extraordinary things, and that is what Mambo is all about."

Mambo Core Team member Brian Teeman, of Manchester, United Kingdom, said he was stunned by the news. "We knew the future of Mambo was bright," Mr Teeman said. "The support of Miro had already told us that," he added. "But now the future is shining so brightly, we will have to wear shades," he quipped.

Both Mr Teeman and Mr Lamont agreed the "Best of Show" award should signal companies becoming more comfortable with open source software as legitimate technology.

"With global training and support, open source operating systems are becoming less problematic than traditional solutions," Mr Lamont said. "It is now only a matter of time before that filters down to other open source projects like Mambo."

"This all goes to show that you don’t need to have 10,000 employees and enormous campus style offices to deliver the goods," Mr Teeman said.

Mambo is Open Source Software. You can read more about Mambo at http://www.mamboserver.com and download the latest version of Mambo at http://www.mamboforge.net. Extensive documentation and information can be found at http://help.mamboserver.com. Mambo is released under General Public Licence courtesy of Miro International PTY. Mambo requires a Unix, Windows 2000 or XP server, running Apache 1.3 or above, MySQL 3.23.55 or above, PHP 4.2.1 or above. Users should be browsing the net with Internet Explorer 5.5 or higher, Mozilla 1.7 or higher or FireFox 0.9.3 or higher (Firefox is best supported for Macintosh). Miro International was formed in March 2000 in Melbourne, Australia as software development company specialising in collaborative software solutions. http://www.miro.com.au

Release prepared: by Peter Russell
Authorised by: Brian Teeman & Peter Lamont

For more information:
Mambo
Brian Teeman, Tel: +44 (0)8707 406 575 – United Kingdom. press@mamboserver.com
Peter Russell, Tel: +44 (0) 7814 756 390 – United Kingdom

Miro
Peter Lamont, Tel: +61 3 9640 0300 - Australia
Justina Phoon, Tel: +61 3 9640 0300 - Australia