Saw an interesting post while cruising JavaBlogs. Weiqi Gao makes some interesting observations on what will happen to IntelliJ's IDEA product over the next few years.
Personally, I love IntelliJ; it's a wonderful tool. But it's only natural that it's becoming more expensive. Consider the following:
* With NetBeans and Eclipse both available, the bar has been lifted in the Java IDE space to a very high level.
* In order to compete successfully with these two products, you need to deliver an exceptional piece of software. IntelliJ has always done that, to my mind (by contrast, I've never been impressed with the leading commercial Java IDE, JBuilder)
* Delivering exceptional software costs money to do; money to build, money to test, money to sell.
While I'm a great fan of open-source software, it must be recognised that it does make it harder for commercial products to compete. Sometimes, there are casulties, and the rising price of IntelliJ is one. I think their announcement of a "Personal Edition" is an excellent response, though.
