Since I am always interested in Joomla! I have a Twitter search saved for any item with the #joomla hash tag. I was quite surprised and pleased to see so many posts from the Brazilian Joomla! community and that led to reading about what is happening in the J! scene in Brazil. The conclusion is: Brazil loves Joomla! And I say that not only because of the HUGE number of users but because even big corporations and government institutions are using it there.
I have always been a fan of Open Source software but once I worked in a corporate environment in Canada I was made aware of the fear of Open Source solutions. Many corporations still believe that if they use OS software they will be left with no support once they run into problems and therefore using Open Source would compromise their systems. That might have been true 15 years ago but in this day and age the Open Source communities are extremely wide and connected which means that if you do get into trouble you can get an answer minutes after you post on any of the many support groups all over the internet.
It still baffles me that corporations prefer to pay thousands or millions of dollars for a proprietary solution when they can have a solution for free and invest on training for their own employees, having in return killer savings and happier, more involved staff. But I digress...back in Brazil, the Ministry of Education has one of the largest governmental sites (with several sub-sites) all running on Joomla! and it's a beauty.
Some other Brazilian government sites also running on Joomla!:
- Salvador City Hall - State of Bahia
- Fortaleza City Hall - State of Ceará
- University of the State of São Paulo
Other big names in Brazil running their sites on Joomla!:
These are only a few of the many names in the corporate/government area. The number of users joining JUGs is increasing exponentially and the events such as JUG meetings and Joomla! Days are very well attended. Lots of new design companies specialized in Joomla! are popping everywhere. Joomla! related Twitter posts from Brazil are constantly popping up. In short, Brazil seems to be a hot house for Joomla! initiatives
I hope to see that much enthusiasm everywhere else. If you would like to get involved in the Joomla! project please check the Joomla! dev blog and find the closest JUG to you. Attend meetings, donate your time to the Bug Squad, follow the dev team members on Twitter or their blogs, participate in discussions and voice your opinions at All Together as a Whole. We look forward to seeing you around!
P.S. Please send me the names of any big Brazilian corporation site you know is using Joomla! to be added to the list.
