The Salesforce1 Platform is a commercially available service that requires a paid subscription. You might already be a customer of salesforce.com and have access to the platform, but it's OK if you don't. Either way, as a loyal reader of our book, we want to show you how you can register for a free Developer Edition and start coding right away. Don't worry, there's no catch; it's perfectly legitimate. In fact, salesforce.com not only allows anyone to register for a free Developer Edition of its service but actually encourages it. Simply visit developer.salesforce.com and click on the JOIN NOW button in the top-right corner. Within seconds of registering, you'll receive an e-mail with a link to log in and set your password. Be sure to remember your username and password as you'll need them later in the chapter.
Tip
A company that gives away its paid service would not last long; that's why the Developer Edition is built with limits that make it perfect for writing code and experimenting, but not actually running a business. This usage restriction is also spelled out in the fine print, so don't get any ideas.
The Salesforce1 Platform has over 100,000 subscribing businesses with millions of users logging in each day. A subscription can be for as few as one user license or as many as you want. When you log in to the Salesforce1 Platform, your unique username and password are used to identify you and the subscribing organization you are a part of. All of the data, schema, and code specific to your organization are available to other users at your organization but are private for everyone else. The collective term for your unique instance of the Salesforce1 Platform is commonly known as your org. In later chapters, we'll discuss the various ways you can share your code outside of your org. For now, take comfort in knowing that the code in your Developer org is secure and won't be seen by anyone else.