First off, thanks for supporting Cerberus Helpdesk development by previously purchasing a version 3.0 license! Contributions like yours have allowed us to push forward full-time for over six years.

Over those six years, the project has gone through some big changes while striving to stay agile for a growing community. The early community was mostly made up of techies; but over the past few years we’ve had increasing interest from people in all industries who are still taking the plunge to web-based e-mail from POP3/IMAP mailboxes and desktop e-mail clients.

We’ve never been the type of project to increase major versions for marketing reasons. We increment our major version when we feel the project and its concepts are going through a fundamental metamorphosis that, despite increasing version numbers, doesn’t require us to stay trapped by a compatibility with the inefficiencies and missteps of the past.

The latest metamorphosis has been version 4.0, which is our answer to the question “What would you do differently if you could start over with what you know today?”.

At first glance you’ll probably notice things are different (and slimmer). Please don’t let this deter you, as it’s part of the process. 4.0 places its major emphasis on customization, which means plug-ins can add or change functionality based on the needs of specific groups. It means you aren’t boxed in by a “one-size-fits-all” mentality. This clean slate allows you to add, build or share the pieces you need without having to deal with the bloat of the pieces you don’t.

For example, at WebGroup Media we’ve added custom tools to our helpdesk to manage our forums, CRM opportunities and product licensing. We’re able to quickly know more about our specific customers when looking at a ticket without cluttering the project for everyone else. A big part of 4.0 development is going to be building and fostering the development of similar tools for various groups. For this reason, we want to keep the core (shared) project as slim as possible.

If you feel your past investment in our project has been worthwhile, please consider upgrading to 4.0 and supporting this effort. As a 3.0 license owner you’ll receive a 50% discount. Don’t wait around for the perfect project to suddenly materialize without your input, stop by the forums and tell us what your ideal helpdesk should do.