Unfortunately, Eric mentions it, but doesn't really discuss a a major concern of many in the community.

What about those people that DO understand that having the bits is for development only?The people that use a Universal it for it's intended purpose, then go out and evangelize and sell (for free) those products - and in return have highly valued skills?

We will no longer have the bits for any type of use whatsoever. This is the expectation that should be addressed. When you drop the most effective and least costly salesforce ever, it may be good form to say why.

I'm not asking for a production license. I just want what I have in the beta cycle - use of the products to explore and become intimately familiar with before selling myself as an expert - which is what I do to organizations of both 5 developers and 5,000. clearly not many are ready to have TS recommended to them... but now none of them will have it recommended by me.

I have marveled over the years how "Enterprise Class" software like Oracle or SAP is supported both by marketing at the "Enterprise" level and armies of highly-paid consultants and contractors. It is no secret that Microsoft has successfully emulated that business model in a much lower tier, with (sorry to say) somewhat less-spectacularly compensated contractors.

So when does the other shoe drop? When am I going to get the compensation that allows me to market myself as a Visual Studio Team System wizard of development? Because I sure can't do that if a company has no motivation to train me on a product they don't have.

Somebody needs to think this through and deal with it when the product gets to market.

In the meantime, I am actually quite happy to plod along as an "ordinary" Microsoft consultant/contractor... ;-)

My only problem with all this is with the Source Control aspect of Team System. Visual Source Safe sucks. It always has, and the new beta version still does. (No command line interface over http).

Users NEED a decent source control system from Microsoft. Team System source control should be the exception here. And SourceSafe sould simply go away.

Microsoft has lost the market before. With half-baked (I really wanted to use a different word) solutions that were over priced.

Half of the features included in the new version are already available as open source. And are open source for other platforms. FxCop, NUnit, Testrunner, etc.

The modeling in 'Architect' edition (which I think will either have to be repackaged or withdrawn from the market)is a joke. A marketing driven product. Eric likes car analogies. It is like the fake hood scope on the new Z06 Corvette.

If Microsoft wants to stop pirarcy, simply use their registration mechanism. However, every Universal edition developer expects to get a full DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT, high-end, best Microsoft has to offer development environment.

We, really I, am about to start an evaluation of configuration management tools. I had squeezed Team Foundation in spite of its minimal support for prior versions. Heck, it doesn't even support the last Microsoft version. Nearly all competitors support Microsoft, Java, etc.

We will probably spend $40k. However, Team Foundation would be much more. This may make Team Foundation a non-starter.

A corollary: If we don't use Team Foundation we probably won't upgrade to VS 2005. So we won't upgrade to VB.Net 2.0 or C# 2.0.

We already have FxCop, NUnit, Testrunner, VBCommenter, NDoc, etc.

David

I think the bigger issue is that MS managed to decide what three "roles" of developers there are in an organization (perhaps their organization?) and divide the product into distinct packages each with a hefty price tag.

In all the places I've worked, moreso with consulting/contract and those I know who do, each person wheres the same hat more often than not. Even in my current organization where there are more than 50 full-time developers working on a commercial web-based application for insurance, no one person can easily fit one of the roles of TS. Easily, we can fit two, most mostly, we wear all three hats almost daily if not weekly.

Now, the biggest confusion is that there are client-side functionality and server functionality in TS. The client functionality (load testing, unit testing, code profiling, static analysis, etc.) doesn't require the server, but stuff like defect tracking, source control, and so on do. From what I understand, one of the TS roles provides a single CAL for the TFS, but that is still seperately purchasable and not available via MSDN.

Some make mention very often that current subscribers will get a free upgrade into one of the roles, and that if you keep renewing each year, you'll keep the same current price. But is still fails in that we don't get a comprehensive set of tools. Even if we forked up $11G's to get the new "comprehensive" set of tools, there is still not team foundation server.

But, MS is trying to target a different class of developer. I wonder how it'll work. I'll take the free upgrade and then downgrade at renewal time to the Professional edition which is what my personal budget can afford. I'm just an Indipendant, certainly no one MS cares about.

My loyalty runs thin and I've already started tinkering with Esclipse and Java for the first time and have been making changes to some of the N* tools to help make them more to my liking. Would have never done this if the MS tools were more readily available to me (or rather, if I knew they will be in the future).

Thanks,
Shawn B.

While the "Enterprise Consultant" issues can be dealt with through special programs, I think Microsoft is missing something big.

VSTS has been a ray of hope on the horizon of the small to midrange developer to provide a single set of integrated lifecycle tools that work within the environment they use. Most could care less about "management frameworks" and Process management. Those are enterprise features.

What we DO care about is source control that WORKS for everything we want to do. We care about issue tracking and Unit testing. Add these tools to the Professional version, and leave the truly enterprise features for the high end. Don't punish us by offering us a tasty sample and then price it way outside our means.

Does Team Server provide the ability for developers to make add-ins and otherwise interface with it via an API of some sort? If so, then why is it treated differently then Exchange, Biztalk, SQL, etc? In MSDN Universal we have access to all those servers to develop software for. If I don't get the bits to Team Server, you've just taken a market away from me.

This is in addition to me just being able to use and familiarize myself with the Universal products in general, so I can become an "expert" and/or recommend them to the various companies I write programs for. Why is Team Suite being treated differently than all other products included in Universal? Universal gives us "small" developers a chance. There are a lot of us. It also allows us to work on teams with bigger projects, because we are familiar with the products. This will hurt us and MS. MS really needs to think this through better. Team Suite needs to act like other server products...a development license, 1 server license, 5 client license, etc.

Universal is starting to mean something other than Universal. I suppose that is the reasoning behind the name change to Premier. I feel like I'm getting a bait-and-switch pulled on me.

It's almost like there's been a change in management at MS that doesn't understand the developer market, or MSDN's intended purpose. Take care of your army of loyal independent "small" developers Microsoft. We have taken care of you these many years. Don't turn your back on us now. Help us Help you!

I totally agree with Erik. I have a small three developer consulting shop. VSS is pathetic. When VS.NET 1.0 came out, I was surprised to see VSS included. When Everett came out I was stunned that it _still_ had VSS. I find it unconscionable that in 2005 Microsoft is still trying to pass off 1992 vintage VSS as a viable solution for "small teams" in VS.NET 2005. I've known several small shops that got frustrated , or burned with VSS and now do without any source control at all because they can’t afford the high-end commercial systems and don’t trust the free/cheap ones. Still, a poor decision. Eight years ago I assured other developers that were then complaining about Visual Source Safe; to be patient because undoubtedly, any day now, Microsoft would come out with a real source control solution. A solution that they could not only use for their development tools, but also provide an important new document versioning component for Microsoft Office. Silly me.

Clearly the Visual Studio team has spent a lot of time listening to their enterprise customers, and has done an amazing job with Team System. Perhaps they should be spending a bit more time talking to the rest of us. I don’t need to support 200 developers, just the three of us (plus the occasional contractor or two).

Many of us got fired up when Microsoft wanted to exclude the Unit Testing functionally from the development SKU. We argued that they should be encouraging TDD development by including Unit Testing in all VS SKUs. This source control issue is a much bigger issue. If there was a Maslow Hierarchy of Needs for software engineering (CMM?) reliable source code control would be the foundation. TDD would be a notch higher (for those developers that are a bit more self-actualized : ) ). We need usable, reliable source control even more then we need Unit Testing. And we really need Unit Testing!

Changes must be made to the current VS2005/VSTS/TSS SKU definitions, MSDN plans and/or the pricing so that small teams can afford the source control and task management features of TSS. The one-time MSDN upgrade discount feels like a car dealer tactic: “Trade in your Ford pickup to a brand new $200k Kenworth Truck with no payments for 6 MONTHS!” You can almost hear the “If you don’t come see me today, I can’t save you any money” tagline that is well known to us in Oregon.

For me, this VSTS issue is critical to my business. It ranks right up there with the one several years ago that redefined Microsoft Solution Providers to exclude single professional shops. I’m starting to see that my loyalty to the Microsoft development universe may have been misplaced. In spite of the lip service about the importance of SMB, their focus is now obviously skewed to corporate enterprise needs. Apparently small shops are increasingly seen as a risk, an inconvenience and a distraction. Like Erik, the arguments for open source software are sounding less extreme and I’ve found myself starting to listen.


If you too have a small team and feel abandoned then please speak out on this issue!