Ever since we have announced the release of The Welkin Suite version 1.0, and after we mentioned that it will become a paid program with a small monthly fee, we have been receiving many questions about the reason behind this transition and our choice of the future payment scheme. Thus, we would like to share our vision with you, and argument our decision, to make sure all of you understand where it comes from, and how exactly we got to the point we are now.
For almost two years, The Welkin Suite was a completely free tool, and until the last moment we did our best to keep it so. While still being in beta, we pushed through as hard as we could, and managed to impress many of our users by 47 releases, and about 66 features that are now helping Salesforce developers progress with their tasks. Overall, we have been trying to keep up with the needs of the Salesforce developer community by providing the most suitable solutions within our tool.
That being said, we would like to do a lot more than we have already accomplished with The Welkin Suite IDE today. At the very least, we would like The Welkin Suite IDE to have the final (and not beta) version for Mac and Linux, static analysis of the source code, integration with all of the most commonly used source code repositories, integration with the project management systems and Continuous Integration services, intelligent deploy system, let alone the multitude of features the administrators need to speed up their work process and minimize the number of errors. That is just the tip of the iceberg, as we have a lot more planned for the future releases.
Nonetheless, the reality is that to keep up with the advancement, we need resources. For two years our team tried to do our best to make your work with Salesforce more comfortable, fast and intelligent. However, to continue with the improvements of our IDE, we need your help. That is why we are making The Welkin Suite IDE a paid product.
We have selected the subscription scheme with a monthly payment since Salesforce is a very dynamic platform, which is constantly evolving and introducing new approaches, possibilities and technologies. As of today, Salesforce has already announced the implementation of the artifacts, IoT Cloud, new Wave and Lightning possibilities, and more - all of which are just a few steps from going live. It stands to reason that to address the latest needs Salesforce developers, The Welkin Suite should keep up with these updates as well. After all, a tool that reflects outdated requirements instead of the cutting edge trends can hardly be regarded as useful and functional.
As we have been emphasizing throughout these two years, the comfort of the developer is our ultimate value. The release of the new and improved version of The Welkin Suite IDE will open new horizons for us as the creators of the tool - and, most importantly, will set ground for many updates of the functionality, which will be highly beneficial for Salesforce developers. Beginning from the large updates to the auto-completion and usability, we will keep upgrading our program to facilitate and automate even more tasks.
We are very grateful for your support and contribution to the development of The Welkin Suite IDE, and we are hoping that our cooperation will remain strong in future.
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