Rick LaPlante's WebLog : RickLa talking about VSTS on Channel9

RickLa talking about VSTS on Channel9

Last week Robert Scoble dropped by my office to chat about the Team System for Channel9. We talked about the history, what the goals were, how we built it, and some of the pricing and licensing issues folks are seeing. It was fun to talk about this stuff. Drop by Channel9 and check it out...

-Rick

Published Friday, April 22, 2005 7:34 PM by rickla

Comments

Saturday, April 23, 2005 10:49 AM by Don

# re: RickLa talking about VSTS on Channel9

Re: "You will have to work extremely hard to pay retail."

Hi Rick, thanks for taking the time to do the video. It's clear that you folks are trying to react to the complaints and do the right thing, but...

If you're going to repeatedly say "We get the small developer", don't say "You'll have to work EXTREMELY hard to pay retail" for VSTS in the same sentence unless (1) the entire sentence applies to the small developer and (2) you are going to explain how small developers can avoid paying retail.

I'm a small ISV. No account manager. One developer. Like most small ISV's I have minimal marketing budget and therefore need to use a long beta as the cornerstone of my marketing strategy. That long beta (increasingly common today) means I can't go Empower. I am a classic, garden variety small developer. I watched your entire video. I've read extensively on VSTS. I consider myself extremely well informed about Microsoft products, policies, and corporate strategies. My MSDN renewal notice arrived yesterday. I can see no options other than to pay full retail for my renewal and (should I add another dev) no options other than full retail to bring that dev on.

I find it extremely insulting to be told I would "have to work really hard to pay retail" when for me there is no option other than full retail.

The next time you say that sentence to a small developer, PLEASE make sure you explain precisely how that small developer is to avoid paying full retail price because I guarantee that none of those small developers have any clue how to avoid paying retail, and they will NOT be happy to have you tell them they have screwed up in paying retail all these years.

-Don

Sunday, April 24, 2005 12:13 PM by Denny

# re: RickLa talking about VSTS on Channel9

thanks for the 9 video -- it starts to clear up things.

my comment on the "free in the box" Vs. "Have to pay for" is this:

what if the "free" part was as you said 1 user; then just make it so that the server can grow as you add users, I am thinking of some deal like terminal server and how you ca take product keys from XP Pro and turn them into TS cals. if I buy a "full" VS sku it ships with an ID thats for that product to activate, let an admin use that key to send a cal request back to MSFT and get a seat on the server.
then for the "retail" purchases it scales with the purchase. for volume users 1 key may equate to more than 1 seat -- like a 25 user pack and so on...
I think that could make the pain go away and give MSFT a way to show ROI as use grows.

Sunday, April 24, 2005 9:57 PM by rickla

# re: RickLa talking about VSTS on Channel9

Don,

very sorry and didn't mean to insult anyone. Paying retail is exactly how quite a few of our customers get VS/MSDN today. What I should have said (you point out correctly) is that there will be substantial discounting of the retail price through promotions for the next year plus. We are also going to announce (soon = roughly 2 weeks) upgrade pricing so that once someone purchases the suite on the promotion pricing, the renewal will be at the discounted price for as long as they renew.

You are right and I should have been more clear.

thanks,
-Rick

Sunday, April 24, 2005 10:04 PM by rickla

# re: RickLa talking about VSTS on Channel9

Denny, we've definitely looked at a model like you suggest. its effectively moving from a server license to a pure "CAL" (client access license) model. This is a great example of the "catch 22" we've got here. Doing this pure CAL model generally drives the price up pretty substantially for bigger customers because the price of a cal for 300 people starts to become prohibitive. And it would also effect how we "give away" cals today. Currently if you get one of the point products you get a CAL for it. if the server is free, there is no monitization for the server because all the free CALs floating around.

thanks for the feedback. if you have an opinion specifically on the restricted license of the in the box server(should be restricted via license to eval only or should be restricted via # of users) it would be good to hear as well.

thx,
-Rick

Monday, April 25, 2005 3:36 PM by EdL

# re: RickLa talking about VSTS on Channel9

Rick -
Thank you for taking the time to answer much of the criticism in your video. However, I still don't see anyone from microsoft addressing what I think is a major problem: By not including the full suite (server and all), in the top tier MSDN, you basically shutting out the developers and consultants who evangelize daily on VS products. These are the same developers who bring in VS into large corporate environments and who play a critical role in determining what SCM tools large enterprises use.

I appreciate that you understand what a marketing and PR snafu was made with the style and nature of the announcement. But underneath it all, it still seems like this product mix is seriously flawed and we as Microsoft developers will pay for it as adoption crawls and the .NET platform suffers for it.

Tuesday, April 26, 2005 9:24 AM by Charlie Eriksen

# re: RickLa talking about VSTS on Channel9

Hello. Fine video. But im still wondering about 1 thing: Will i be able to buy Visual Studio 2005 Prof with a studie licens?

Wednesday, April 27, 2005 11:57 AM by rickla

# re: RickLa talking about VSTS on Channel9

Ed,

You are right that we aren't considering including everything we've built for testing, load testing, architecture, team itegration, etc into what was MSDN/U. And as we expand the Team System to other roles such as DBAs, business analysts, etc, we wouldn't include those as well. As i've said, there has to be some monetization strategy for the major investment by any business. A big focus for us is trying to make existing customers "whole" with the transition. With the current model, you can get the same for $300 less, much more for the same price, or with the promotional pricing you can get the entire suite for an incremental (1K to 2K) per seat over what they pay today. That may seem a lot to some, but its also a massive amount of value. if you end up feeling that what we've built is not worth 1K incremental, then we've not built the right product and we'll keep working on it. over time we'll make those products better and the value proposition even stronger. however, I firmly believe (and from a lot the customer feedback i've recieved) that VSTS is going to be a major success in the market because for that incremental 1-2K people ARE seeing the value.

we're taking the feedback about small dev shops to heart and have made real changes to the plan (including a restricted version of TFS in the subscription for instance).

thanks,
-Rick

Wednesday, April 27, 2005 12:02 PM by rickla

# re: RickLa talking about VSTS on Channel9

Charlie,

i'm not quite clear on your question so i'll take a shot at a couple...

if your question is "will i be able to by VS 2005 Professional by itself", the answer is Yes.

if your question is "will i be able to by VS 2005 Professional and use TFS" the answer is Yes, but you'll need to purchase the Server (if you didn't buy VS 2005 Pro with MSDN Premium subscription which would come with the restricted TFS server), and a CAL (client access license) for each person using the server. CALs come with each of the VS Team * role based skus but do not come with VS Professional.

hope this helps. if the question was different, let me know.

-Rick

Wednesday, April 27, 2005 2:45 PM by Charlie Eriksen

# re: RickLa talking about VSTS on Channel9

I didnt explain me very well, i see.. I was asking if you will be able to buy vs 2k5 Pro with a Academic License, like i bought my Visual Studio.NET 2003 Pro, like 75% cheaper. This licens for people who are studying :)

Let me excuse my bad english, im not that into english, i still have MANY years back in the school, to learn it :)

Wednesday, April 27, 2005 3:46 PM by John

# re: RickLa talking about VSTS on Channel9

Thanks for the informative video Rick. Your discussion helped clarify some of the intent of the Team System pricing; however, I still have to agree with some of the comments from people in smaller development groups. It sounds like, from Microsoft's perspective, Team System is an "Enterprise" tool set that is mostly useful to large development teams where everyone wears a different hat and plays a distinct role. I personally am disappointed by two things in the TS pricing structure:

1) The pricing is a roadblock to smaller dev teams that would like to run their projects a little more professionally and use tools that integrate the development process.

In most small dev teams, people do play many different roles (as mentioned on Eric Bowen's blog http://scrappydog.com/blog/archive/2005/03/22/1485.aspx) and, if they are using a formalized development process, need access to tools that span the roles of Project Manager, Requirements Manager, System Architect, Developer, Tester and Technical Writer. If smaller dev teams are not using a well structured development process then Microsoft should be encouraging them to do so and motivating them by lowering the bar for adoption of MS tools (and possibly the MSF). Microsoft has fallen pathetically short in this area in the past. They started back in VB6 by incorporating a dumbed-down version of a Rational Rose UML modeler but then totally dropped the ball and seemed to believe that developers should function in a single role as their own little work islands. While I realize that some developers, including those within the venerated walls of MS, still produce code using the time-tested technique of design-on-the-fly hacks, that doesn’t mean that MS could not take the lead and set more Patterns and Practices standards for development processes. Our team might not adopt all the tools and functionality available in the Team System but we would like to pick and choose and have a toolset that supports integrated collaboration.

2) Existing MSDN Universal subscribers appear to be getting the shaft on the upgrade as compared to MSDN Enterprise customers.

In our group of three developers we have two MSDN Universal subscriptions and one MSDN Enterprise subscription. We all currently develop in VS 2003 and use SourceSafe as a common source repository. Under the new upgrade plan, the person with the Enterprise subscription seems to be getting a great deal because he will be automatically upgraded to the equivalent of the current MSDN Universal subscription and will get the VS 2005 Developer toolset. Those of use who have been paying an extra $700 or so per year for our Universal subscriptions get exactly the same thing or the choice to jump into a fixed role of Software Architect or Software Tester which are peer client tools. Unfortunately my teammates and I can’t make that choice because we perform all those roles. One would think that it would be in Microsoft’s best interest to make it easier for small teams such as ours, who have worked as an early adopter and given MS lots of good press, whitepapers and videos in the past, to continue to be the evangelists of Microsoft’s development tools. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

I can sympathize with the comments to the effect that MSDN Universal has, in the past, been the package that included all development tools and that now the equivalent Team System Suite package is exhorbitantly priced. I also can understand the licensing argument that the Team Foundation Server should be licensed as a production server. I think that MS needs to do more work to make all the development (client) tools more affordable to the small teams that used to be MSDN Universal subscribers. I think that small teams should also be able to purchase the Foundation Server with something like 5 CALs slightly cheaper than for larger organizations. Put the cost back into the number of CALs. The biggest problem with all of this is that every year Microsoft changes its marketing and licensing structures for its products. Unfortunately that only serves to piss-off its existing customer base.

-John Chorlton
Cascade Designs, Inc.

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