Companion Products FAQ
Q: What does "recommended by JetBrains" mean?
A: It means we use it, we trust it and we love it. Or, as we say, it helps us develop with pleasure. Not every product qualifies to become a Companion Product. Some products may just not make sense for us from a business point of view. When it comes to technoogy and usability, Companion Products must deliver the same overall level of stability and user experience that we want for IntelliJ IDEA users... and for ourselves! That means, only the very best can make the grade.
We look at every proposed product from that standpoint of whether we like it and trust it enough to link our reputation with it. If so, we invite the vendor to participate in our program.
Q: Are Companion Products a new JetBrains pricing model?
A: Definitely not. Companions Products vendors are independent companies and they decide what products they produce, what kind of functionality to implement, and pricing for their products. We may advise, we may negotiate, but frankly we have enough decisions about features and pricing for JetBrains products. If we feel we can't support a vendor's proposals, we simply won't enter into the relationship.
Q: Why doesn't IntelliJ IDEA implement these features? What if I buy a Companion Product and IntelliJ IDEA implements if features later on?
A: Well, for one thing, "there are more of them (vendors) than there is of us". The major advantage for you in that is that Companion Products vendors are ready to deliver features NOW. You need not wait to see when and if we will find time for them in our highly pressed schedules.
We can't guarantee 100% that we will never implement the same or similar functionality in IntelliJ IDEA. We will always make our own decisions about what goes into IntelliJ IDEA. However, we would most probably not invite a vendor to participate in the Companion Products program if their products provide functionality we plan to, or feel we should implement in IntelliJ IDEA in the foreseeable future.
By the way, we have a similar situation with our own ReSharper product, but from the other side. Our ReSharper 1.5 is a plugin for VisualStudio.NET 2003. Later, some features of ReSharper appeared in VisualStudio 2005. However, we are adding still more features to ReSharper that are not included to VisualStudio 2005. We think it is highly likely that Companion Products vendors would do likewise with their products.