Microsoft Commerce Server 2009 – December 2008 CTP, formerly known as Commerce Server 2007 code name “Mojave”, is the first feature complete pre-release of the next version of Commerce Server.

Commerce Server 2009 delivers the ability to increase your business reach by making it possible to sell via multiple channels using an out-of-the-box shopping site, SharePoint Commerce Services, and the Multi-Channel Commerce Foundation. The new out-of-the-box shopping site leverages SharePoint Commerce Services, which provides a gallery of ASP.NET 3.5 Web Parts, a comprehensive e-commerce shopping feature-set, and technology integration between Commerce Server and SharePoint technologies. The Multi-Channel Commerce Foundation provides a new unified, extensible run-time programming model for Commerce Server, including new run-time e-commerce capabilities.

The December CTP adds the following capabilities over previous Commerce Server 2007 code name “Mojave” releases:

• Update package from Commerce Server 2007, allowing for seamless in-place upgrade of existing deployments.
• Complete out-of-the-box e-commerce shopping site in SharePoint with new search functionality, new shopping features, and what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) content management and design experiences. This helps to facilitate rapid assembly and maintenance of e-commerce Web sites by business users and creative professionals.

Important: Install this pre-release version of Commerce Server 2009 into a non-production environment, preferably on a clean machine, to learn more about the run-time Multi-Channel Commerce Foundation and the SharePoint Commerce Services. This release is for evaluation purposes only and is not intended to be used in a production environment.

You must uninstall all previous Commerce Server CTP versions. Leveraging a clean system that has never had a previous version of a Commerce Server CTP installed upon it is strongly recommended.

Microsoft Commerce Server 2009 on Connect

A newer version of the Commerce Server 2009 has been released. Read this post for more information and download links.