Pitching the use of ModX to a client

I am receiving some resistance from a client regarding the use of ModX, mainly because it is in beta. I pitched this to 2 clients recently, my pitch states that the project is moving along well and that the community is getting stronger each day etc.. One client went for it no problem and was actually exited to be getting in on a early level with such an interesting project. However the second has been quite nervous about the beta state and was mainly concerned with how it will be to go from the beta to the final release, will everything still work, security issues etc.

Has anyone had any problem pitching ModX to a client? If so how were you able to overcome it?

I am committed to using ModX and would very much like to convince my client that it is a good choice.

Hmmm; there is nothing beta about the current MODx release. We’ve had stable, GA releases in production and available to download for over two years now. We occasionally provide early access to alpha or beta versions of upcoming releases, but MODx is stable software.

I think you and your client are just a little confused about MODx being beta because the version numbering is 0.9.x at the moment (or pre-1.x). However, that is not a direct reflection of stability IMHO, and is simply a choice we’ve made to reflect the confidence we have in the longevity of MODx; i.e. it’s just a reflection of maturity relative to the extremely long life-cycle I expect to see the product fill.

There will always be some degree of fear choosing a product you don’t know. And as Jason points out, sub 1.x rev number scare the least aware whereas it should show that the dev team has high standards and won’t dub their software 1.0 until it’s where they want it to be.

Anyway, the best way to brush away those fears is example : there are many corporate website running MODx and also (show them examples), MODx open doors no other open source CMS has opened, thanks to an unparalleled flexibility. As far as security is concerned, we’ve had very few alerts and they’ve been fixed real quick (let them look at Secunia for example, and our security alert board). Last but not least, the fact that we have a wide MODx coding team is a token of perennity, as is the wide area covered by a strong testing team to report and squash bugs out. The vitality of the community should not hurt either, nor should the ever growing number of MODx extensions.

Pitching MODx to clients is something I have learned to do and, in France, with some level of success against more established solutions such as SPIP, Joomla or Drupal. The "Think Different" pitch work well with MODx, once you’ve gotten past the doubts through live demos (QuickEdit is a winner here) and sample corporate website from all over the world

I think you and your client are just a little confused about MODx being beta because the version numbering is 0.9.x at the moment (or pre-1.x). However, that is not a direct reflection of stability IMHO, and is simply a choice we’ve made to reflect the confidence we have in the longevity of MODx; i.e. it’s just a reflection of maturity relative to the extremely long life-cycle I expect to see the product fill.

Thanks, this will help me explain this to my weary client. I am fully thrilled with ModX, no pitch needed to convince me.

Must say that I was a bit confused with the pre 1.x issue, but I personaly was not concerned.