We've been on an amazing journey with the Lightning Platform. What began as a new user experience, App Builder, and ecosystem, is now a robust application development framework that makes it easier for our customers, admins, and developers to do more, faster. And now, we're entering another new chapter for Lightning — I'm excited to announce that we're making it possible to build components on Lightning with modern JavaScript.

The unsung hero of Lightning are the components — reusable, building blocks of code that increase developer velocity. Component-based development is the center of Lightning because it makes it easy to reuse code in multiple pages and multiple places. Devs can leverage the core components and services they need for apps so they don't have to reinvent the wheel — giving them more time to focus on more innovative parts of their app. By combining Lightning Components with accompanying Lightning services — like the Lightning Data Service, Lightning Locker, and the Base Lightning Component library — we're helping developers to do more and innovate faster.

Today, we're taking a big step forward to further accelerate component-based development by introducing Lightning Web Components. Based on modern, standards-based JavaScript, Lightning Web Components empower developers to use the tools and language they love to build components for Lightning and go faster.

Why is this a big deal? Well up until now, if you wanted to build a Lightning Component, you needed to use Aura — a programming model that we developed. Why did we build Aura? In 2014, we were part of the effort to push forward large-scale client-side application development on the web. At the time, there were multiple competing models and it wasn't clear whether any would prevail. In the absence of a standard, we created our own modular programming model called Aura.

Fast forward to today and much has changed. Nearly every company is in the midst of a digital transformation and as part of that, is re-thinking their app strategy. Which means there's an ever-increasing demand for developers to create and build new apps, fast.

And, that's exactly why we're turning to modern JavaScript for Lightning Web Components. Used and loved by millions of developers every day, JavaScript is the lingua franca of the web. Lightning Web Components takes the best of modern JavaScript and pairs it with the existing portfolio of developer services in the Lightning Platform to help developers work faster. Put simply, now every JavaScript developer can build on Salesforce.

Breaking it down further, this means that:

• For the millions of JavaScript developers worldwide, it means they can code on Salesforce without having to learn anything new. Devs can use the tools they love and the modern language of the web, knowing they're improving their careers and future marketability every time they build an app on Salesforce.

• For our existing developers, it means their existing Lightning Components built with Aura will work side by side with Lightning Web Components. They don't have to rebuild anything. They can still use Aura or explore what Lightning Web Components has to offer.

• For our 150,000+ Salesforce customers, it means that it's easier than ever to find developers who can build and deploy blazing fast apps on Salesforce that are connected to your CRM and business data.

• And for us, it means that we've taken another huge step forward in the development of Lightning. When we launched Lightning, we knew it was going to be a multi-year journey and every year, I'm amazed by how much we've been able to evolve our Platform with the help of our Trailblazers and extended Ohana.

As part of this, we've been working with standards groups like ECMA TC39 and the browser companies to ensure that Lightning Web Components is an inclusive programming model that will work for all front-end JavaScript developers. And we're just getting started - we'll continue to work with TC39 to contribute in actively shaping the future of web components.

Lightning Web Components is the future of Lightning and the future of development at Salesforce. We are all-in on standards-based technologies and are committed to making it easier for developers everywhere to build apps on Salesforce. To learn more, please check out this post on our Developer blog and our Trailhead project on Lightning Web Components.