As many of you will be aware, Helm 4 Control Panel had its launch with the help of Microsoft in November 2006. What you may not know is that Helm 4 employs a completely different architecture than any other control panel. While the core is still maintained by us, the ability to create new functionality for Helm is going completely open source. And right now we want to get your thoughts on that.

Anyone is going to be able to create new modules to control and automate anything they want. Hosts can share these ideas or even sell them in a new module marketplace. While it’s still early days, we are very excited because it’s the first time that the open source approach has been taken on Windows and it's going to mean lots of great new functionality with all the inventive hosts and developers out there.

Whatever you want to do you can develop a module to do it. Developers will also create modules and of course we here at WebHost Automation will create modules of our own. Some modules will be free and some will be available in the new module marketplace. So whatever you've always wanted a control panel to automate - now it can be done.

Right now we want to hear from hosts about the modules you would most like to see. We’ve got developers queuing up to create modules and we’ve got a budget of our own for more. We’d really like to hear what you guys in the industry have got to say on this. We were once web hosts ourselves (which was the whole reason we created Helm) and we have our own ideas about what modules will be developed but we also want feedback from you.

You guys are the guys on the ground so what do you think? What modules do we need out there like yesterday?


p.s. To make it more interesting we have a $500/ prize for the best module idea contributed this month on this and other forums - payable in vouchers to your favourite site or shop... Amazon, Firebox, Sony