Packt

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Packt, pronounced Packed, is a publishing company based in Birmingham, UK. Founded in 2004 as an independent company, they are unique and modern in their approach to publishing, focusing on supporting and promoting Open Source.

Packt focuses on producing books containing newer information for communities of IT developers, administrators, and novices equally. They published their first book, Mastering phpMyAdmin for Effective MySQL Management, in April 2004 and continue to specialize in publishing focused books on specific technologies and solutions. The company supports and publishes books on smaller projects and subjects that standard publishing companies cannot make profitable. The company's business model, which involves print on demand publishing and selling direct, enables them to make money selling books with lower unit sales. This business model also gives authors high royalty rates and the opportunity to write on topics that standard publishers tend to avoid.

By the end of 2007, Packt will have published over 100 books on a number of different subjects. They are perhaps better known for their books on content management systems, however their range covers AJAX and Asterisk to WordPress and jQuery. Packt has developed distinctive branding for its book covers, using a variety of interesting, colorful and sometimes abstract photographic images. These were originally designed by British graphic designer Helen Wood.

Packt books are available via the Safari online bookshelf system.^[1]

The company supports and promotes Open Source projects and concepts. When a book, written on an Open Source project, is sold Packt pays a royalty directly to that project. This scheme has resulted in the company providing sustainable revenues to many of the Open Source projects since 2004.^[2]

Packt announced in March 2008 that its contributions to Open Source projects have now surpassed US $100,000.^[3]

In July 2006, the Open Source Content Management (CMS) Award was launched. The Award scheme is designed to encourage, support, recognize and reward Open Source Content Management Systems that have been selected by a panel of judges and visitors to the website.

In November 2006, Joomla! was announced as the first winner of the Award receiving $5,000. Drupal finished second receiving $3,000 with Plone finishing third and receiving $2,000.

Packt ran the Open Source CMS Award again in 2007, this time expanding the categories and prize money to a total of $20,000. The overall Award was won this time by Drupal who received a prize of $5,000, with the 2006 winner Joomla! finishing second and collecting $3,000. CMS Made Simple, a newcomer to the finals, finished in third and received $2,000. Despite finishing second to Drupal in the overall Award, Joomla! finished first in the Best Open Source PHP Category, which had a different panel of judges evaluating the finalists.

The 2008 Open Source CMS Award was won, once again, by Drupal, finishing ahead of Joomla! and DotNetNuke. "These awards are a testament to the valuable contributions from dedicated Drupal community members around the globe" said Drupal's founder Dries Buytaert in response to the news. "Working together, the Drupal community is building the future of the dynamic web so that anyone can quickly build great social publishing websites" he concluded.

The full list of winners for the 2008 Open Source CMS Award are as follows:

• Overall Winner: Drupal
• Most Promising: SilverStripe
• Best Open Source PHP: Drupal
• Best non PHP Open Source CMS: Plone

In April 2007, Packt launched their Article Network. Starting from a mere 2 articles, Packt now publishes over 10 articles each month. The Article Network is a collection of articles and book excerpts written by skilled professionals and developers from around the world. The subject matter ranges from articles on Open Source and Linux to .NET technologies, JavaScript libraries, and Photoshop. Packt columnists also conduct interviews with prominent professionals on their upcoming technologies for the Article Network. E.g Miro, GoboLinux, etc

• Packt Publishing's official site
• Open Source Content Management System Award site
• Packt's Article Network
• CMS Report: articles related to Packt Publishing