Last week the 400,000th demo trial of Joomla was launched through the CloudAccess.net platform, less than three years after we became the official host of demo.joomla.org. Open Source Matters awarded us the contract to host demo.joomla.org in April of 2010, and we're very grateful to be able to provide such a valuable service to the entire Joomla community. We're also fortunate to have been able to put Joomla at the heart of our company and build around it. Read more about the history of CloudAccess.net.

Our platform wasn't perfect at first. There were some bumps in the road, but over time we've dramatically improved the automated provisioning process, scaling our servers for faster Joomla sites all while keeping up with each new version of the CMS as it was released. We've also developed an industry-leading Joomla support system in the process - clients can submit a support ticket, use our live chat feature or call us directly to get answers to core Joomla questions.

We currently have over 7,000 active demo sites and more than 7,500 active paying clients who have either converted their demo trials or migrated their Joomla sites to the CloudAccess.net network. At first, over 90% of all demo users were coming from demo.joomla.org, but as our company gained traction and popularity in the Joomla hosting & support industry, more and more clients found us organically. We're happy with the progression of our platform and that we've gotten Joomla in the hands of so many users around the world, but we're always looking for ways to improve and refine our systems.

We have something really exciting in the works, something we think will be well-received by the community. Our team has been working on a point-and-click API for extension and template developers that will give them and their clients the power of launching Joomla instances, complete with their 3rd party template or applications, directly from their web property. We're going to publish another blog soon with a few more details and a way to sign up to learn more.

In the meantime, we're going to celebrate the 400,000 milestone for a minute or two and thank the entire community that made it possible. Thanks!