Hyrbis product overview

Here's a quick overview based on our current experiences implementing Hybris for a global client.
Hybris is an eCommerce platform and has a number of product offerings:

1. hybris Web Content Management module. Whole Pages or partial html fragments can be maintained in WCMS. WCMS has the ability to run the website within the WCMS container and then allow the user to hover over CMS parts of a page, click and then and edit&save the CMS. Pretty neat feature they call "Live Edit".
WCMS has a "future preview" feature which allows users to view what the site will look like at a furture date but also for other criteria such as a certain role. Note: this is for CMS content only not Product nor behavior (e.g. js code)
The last 2 features are obviously appealing to a Business User maintaining the CMS.
HTML page fragements means no head, body, just typically ul or divs, links and images. 
WCMS has the concept of "perspectives" which roughly translate to ui components such as main navigation, footer etc. 

2. hybris Product cockpit; Product data is maintained in Hybris "product cockpit" and pushed to Solr. Product cockpit is a UI which users can use to upload and maintain product data. Uploads can be done via spreadsheet.

3. hybris Multichannel Accelerator. Hybris offers a storefront website out of the box which is integrated to Hybris. A storefront for you to use as a starting point and then customize. Like SiteGenesis for Demandware. Built using Java J2EE, Jsps, Taglibs, Spring Framework, Eclipse, JDK 6.Accelerator

Accelerator has jsps template pages for  Home page, Category, Sub-catergory, Shopping Bag, Search results, MyAccount signin, register, landing, addresses, gift card, order history, Help pages such as contact etc. (note 1 template for much of Help since it would mostly be CMS content) and Store Locator.

Accelerator does not have single page checkout support but we understand it integrated to Cybersource out of the box.

Since its a starter codebase then we understand that any new Accelerator releases & upgrades would not be automatic and would typically be done on a case by case basis by manually copying and merging code from the new Accelerator release to the customers current Accelerator codebase. The hybris backend would be upgraded in the usual manner.
This linkedin link thread can provide more information on Accelerator. For Client G the expectation was that if using Accelerator then expect to rip and replace the complete HTML layer and redo that, only keeping and enhancing the model and controller code of Accelerator.

4. Account, Cart and Order apis. Hybris apis exchanging xml for create/remove/add to cart, apply/remove promos, create/update account, create & commit order etc. Hybris has a Web Services layer but I do not have any more details.
Wiki 

5. Hybris Accelerator Mobile. A mobile storefront. We have very little information on this but Client B business went to Germany, checked it out and decided against using it.



A note on Arvato whom Fluid have partnered with on Reebok and Benefit. Arvato are a "systems integrator" (from their website) who can also help provide hosting services. They work in a number of fields including SAP, BPM, CRM and IT Outsourcing, but for eComm they are a Platnium partner for Hybris.
When partnering with Fluid on Benefit Arvato managed the backend server side and built a Restful api layer to integrate with Hybris Account, Cart and Order apis. Thus Fluid built the php/html frontend and Arvato handled the backend. Note: the hybris out of box web services support json format but Arvato have enhanced further with a custom wrapper layer.
However for Client G we learned that they see more work in future doing Hybris Accelerator site builds for customers i.e. the full stack. Arvato are opening a new office in San Francisco and hiring to do more of that business. As of May 2012 they are doing the complete frontend and backend build for Client G.
I understand Arvato helped build Hybris Accelerator for mobile.

I also understand that Arvato added a push of Product Cockpit data to Solr. All requests for product data hit Solr, not through any Arvato/Hyrbis product api (unlike CMS and other apis).

Important point. Product data is retrieved by making Solr requests not calling Hyrbis apis. You can probably have 1 server side proxy (e.g. php) to service and service all product requests. It accepts requests for product info in the form of Solr searches (with url params etc.). It hits Solr and returns the data json encoded.