Three years ago, Syncrony’s cyber brains sat round the boardroom table with a momentous decision to make; where to go after 15 years of developing websites and custom apps on DotNetNuke?
Howard Rybko
Technical Director
Syncrony Digital
The Problem
Developers seem to hate change more than most. And sitting round the table, Syncrony had a group of them staring down management, with change, their darkest fear, bearing down on them. Over the years, they had become the top DotNetNuke (DNN) developers in South Africa. Their combined expertise of over 20-years of DNN experience was gained from completing a myriad of CMS websites, custom systems developments and e-commerce stores on the platform. Now, management was looking for a change. One could only imagine their screams if management weren’t in the room.
And so began our relationship & love affair with Umbraco CMS and, eventually, with uSkinned - the Scottish starter kit and theme wizards!
The Solution
Syncrony Digital now needed to find a new Microsoft stack based platform that would deliver fast, responsive websites on a cutting edge CMS platform with less time and effort. They knew that the ability to leverage new web technology would save both our clients and ourselves time and money. Additionally, the new platform would have be open source, have a large pool of worldwide developers and be simple enough for clients.
After 30 minutes of the ‘stare down at the O.K. Corral’ a, Eureka moment dawned! One of the developers uttered the words we were all waiting to hear. ‘I’ve been playing around with a CMS platform called Umbraco and its awesome!’
The ease of building, the speed and the range of options were simply stunning. uSkinned is worth much more than it costs!
The Outcome
As Syncrony started to develop on Umbraco, the whole crew came around surprisingly quickly - something they thought impossible. The one complaint from the designers was that they needed to find better themes and after some Googling, we found uSkinned and have never looked back. With themes for every possible application, our customers routinely use words like ‘nailed it!’ and ‘awesome’, which of course is music to our ears.
Below are a few of the many Umbraco sites Syncrony Digital launched with the help of uSkinned themes. Some of these websites have additional functionality, including membership subscription systems, payment gateways and other more complex developments in MVC.
We'll now hand things over to Howard Rybko, as he walks us through some of Syncrony Digital's recent uSkinned-powered website projects.
Conclusion
How would you rate the content editor experience in a uSkinned theme?
5 out of 5
What has been the biggest benefit of using a uSkinned theme?
Saved development time
Saved design time
Saved money
Increased profit
Increased development capacity
What specific features do you love in uSkinned themes?
