Publishing our controls for WPF as separate package

Over the past couple of months, we've been discussing whether to package the WPF controls that have just been released out of beta in v2009.2 as a separate product. We've certainly been saying all along that the grid, charts, toolbars, navbars, printing, and so on for WPF should be part of DXperience Enterprise and DXperience Universal (which makes those subscriptions enormously valuable), but we were not quite so certain, so resolved, about creating a DXperience WPF. At least, not immediately; later on perhaps.

Let me explain: there are two camps. First there's the "What Are You Waiting For?" camp who've been saying the WPF controls are hugely beneficial, especially to WinForms developers who want to move to a more modern platform, and that the controls being released are full-featured and by no means cut down or "lite" when compared to their WinForms brethren. And then there's the "What are you smoking?" camp who like to point out that we don't have controls like the pivot grid or the scheduler for WPF yet, so the package as a whole might not be perceived as being value for money.

Well, given that we are working on the pivot grid and the scheduler for WPF (to be in beta, if not released by v2009.3) and given that you, our customers, have been weighing in on the topic and giving your feedback in no uncertain terms, we've decided to produce a new subscription called DXperience WPF straightaway with v2009.2. It's the direct analogue of DXperience WinForms and DXperience ASP.NET: a price of $799.99 and no source code. It appeared on the website and the order form at the time of the release of v2009.2.

Big hint: if you already own DXperience WinForms and are thinking of also getting the new DXperience WPF, my advice is DON'T. Upgrade to DXperience Enterprise instead. You'll get the quadruple bonus score if you do: all of our ASP.NET, WinForms, WPF, and Silverlight controls and libraries; all of the source to those controls; CodeRush; and savings of $300 per developer. What's not to like?

(Preemptive answer to an obvious question: whereas we feel it is time to release the DXperience WPF subscription, we don't feel the same way about a possible DXperience Silverlight. We believe we have to add more documentation, controls, and functionality to our Silverlight toolset and are working on that. We'll be making an announcement about such a subscription much closer to the v2009.3 timeframe (Nov/Dec). However, please note that the Silverlight controls, although they remain in beta within DXperience Enterprise and Universal, do have a GoLive license and so you can use them in production applications if you wish.)

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