listening to customers

Rick LaPlante announces new entry level pricing for Team Foundation

John Lawrence (MSFT) — Fri, 13 May 2005 02:27:39 GMT

Rick LaPlante just announced some great news - listening to customers
In a nutshell, we're going to...

VSTS Pricing Announcement

Buck Hodges — Fri, 13 May 2005 02:38:52 GMT

Pricing is an important&nbsp;topic, and I've written several posts about it.&nbsp; Today Rick LaPlante...

re: listening to customers

Don — Fri, 13 May 2005 02:53:28 GMT

THANK YOU!

-Don

Licensing VSTS

Bruce Johnson's SOA(P) Box — Fri, 13 May 2005 06:20:58 GMT

Things I Learned in Today's Team Foundation Chat

Dave Bost — Fri, 13 May 2005 06:22:20 GMT

re: listening to customers

Martin Hueser — Fri, 13 May 2005 08:46:10 GMT

Great news. However, I'm still not sure what the different VS 2005 Team Editions include. Is there a comparison chart to see which features are included in each VS2005 TE variant?

re: listening to customers

Martin Hueser — Fri, 13 May 2005 08:56:47 GMT

Never mind, I found it

http://msdn.microsoft.com/howtobuy/vs2005/editions/team/compare/

re: listening to customers

thomas — Fri, 13 May 2005 09:24:05 GMT

Are there any functional limitations in the limited TFS?? Or is it just limited to 5 users??

re: listening to customers

Phil Lee — Fri, 13 May 2005 09:57:29 GMT

Will MSDN Universal customer updgraded to Team Developer receive the limited TFS?

re: listening to customers

Phil Lee — Fri, 13 May 2005 09:54:16 GMT

Sorry, ignore that last post.
I meant to say, will MSDN Enterprise customers that are upgraded to Team Edition for Software Developers, also receive the limited TFS?

MSDN Universal gets team system server!

Frans Bouma's blog — Fri, 13 May 2005 10:28:56 GMT

re: listening to customers

Matt Hammond — Fri, 13 May 2005 11:06:28 GMT

Thanks! That really is great news. I think it will have a highly significant effect on the amount of people on the market with Team Foundation skills and will therefore help you no end in getting some big paying customers.

A win-win situation I think.

Visual Studio Team System role editionには、5名限定版Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Serverが付く事になったらしい

米田 Blog ( SQL Server MEMO ) — Fri, 13 May 2005 11:56:59 GMT

Visual Studio Team System role editionには、5名限定版Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Serverが付く事になったらしい

Visual Studio Team Foundation Server with limited users for MSDN subscribers

Pritam Pal — Fri, 13 May 2005 12:30:44 GMT

Visual Studio Team Foundation Server with limited users for MSDN subscribers

MSDN Universal to include a limited version of Team System Foundation Server

No Fun Intended — Fri, 13 May 2005 12:45:30 GMT

MSDN Universal to include a limited version of Team System Foundation Server

No Fun Intended — Fri, 13 May 2005 12:46:57 GMT

re: listening to customers

css — Fri, 13 May 2005 12:55:17 GMT

We need to get the Code Profiling, Static Analysis, Unit Testing, Code Coverage into Visual Studio 2005 Professional with MSDN Premium Subscription (http://msdn.microsoft.com/howtobuy/vs2005/subscriptions/compare/).
If Microsoft is serious about letting developers create better software, they will bundle those tools with the lower subscription levels.

re: listening to customers

Ian Cooper — Fri, 13 May 2005 13:49:09 GMT

That's great news. Definite signs of listening here.

Limited Team System Foundation Server for MSDN Universal

Extemporaneous Mumblings — Fri, 13 May 2005 13:52:53 GMT

re: listening to customers

Keith Rome — Fri, 13 May 2005 14:32:29 GMT

FANTASTIC!

re: listening to customers

Ray Taylor — Fri, 13 May 2005 16:21:15 GMT

This is great news, thanjs MS.

Update on Visual Studio Team System Pricing/Licensing

Mike Taulty's Weblog — Fri, 13 May 2005 16:14:59 GMT

New Visual Studio 2005 pricing and licensing changes: Microsoft listens to feedback and gets it!

Eric Bowen's .NET Technology Blog — Fri, 13 May 2005 16:42:18 GMT

New Visual Studio 2005 licensing changes: Microsoft listens to feedback and gets it!

Eric Bowen's .NET Technology Blog — Fri, 13 May 2005 16:45:49 GMT

re: listening to customers

John Saunders — Fri, 13 May 2005 16:58:03 GMT

Good post and thanks for the changes.

There was a Beta 2 with VSTS released through the SQL Server 2005 Beta program. Given the decision to include a 5-user Foundation Server in the VSTS editions, perhaps these bits could be refreshed to include the 5-user server? I'd love to be able to start learning it.

John Saunders

re: listening to customers

Philip Rieck — Fri, 13 May 2005 16:59:13 GMT

Thanks to you, and thanks to Rob Caron for soliciting the feedback as well. This is great news and addresses all my major concerns. I can once again be sure of being an effective consultant and help sell your products!

re: listening to customers

Mike Gunderloy — Fri, 13 May 2005 17:19:08 GMT

OK, wait, maybe I'm thick, but I still can't sort through the way you're laying out the pricing. Can you please reduce this to words of one syllable for me:

I'm an MSDN Universal Subscriber with a current subscription agreement when VSTS is released. I want to upgrade to the full Team Suite product. I pay $X.

A year later, I want to continue to use the full Team Suite product, so I renew for $Y.

I think I know what X and Y are, but I've seen conflicting interpretations on different blogs, so rather than fill them in myself, I'd rather get the numbers here, straight from the horse's mouth. And yeah, I know, sales tax, volume licenses, yadda yadda, let's just take the round numbers where retail is around $2300.

Way to go Microsoft!

AngryPets.com :: Blog — Fri, 13 May 2005 17:50:58 GMT

re: listening to customers

Shawn B. — Fri, 13 May 2005 18:41:20 GMT

One piece of information I am completely unable to locate is: what subscription level is Visual Studio Tools for Office included? (Premium, or Premium with TS?). I ask because in the beta 2 it is only available with the Team Suite version of the beta.

Thanks,
Shawn

re: listening to customers

Matt Nicholson — Fri, 13 May 2005 19:03:39 GMT

Can I just clarify - is the bundled version of Team Foundation Server a full version with a 5-user licence, or a special version that can only support 5 users?

re: listening to customers

rickla — Fri, 13 May 2005 20:00:25 GMT

Many folks have asked "is this a full version" in 1 way or another. the answer is yes, it is only limited by the number of user accounts that can be created against the server. You can have no more than 5 accounts. other than that, its the real deal.

re: listening to customers

rickla — Fri, 13 May 2005 20:04:35 GMT

Phil - if you get any of the role based skus w/ the MSDN Premium subscription you'll get the limited server. MSDN/E customers get upgraded to VSTeam Edition for Devs w/ MSND Premium which would indeed come w/ the limited server.

re: listening to customers

rickla — Fri, 13 May 2005 20:16:12 GMT

CSS- I'd like a Porshe and I think they should give me one if they were serious about having a lot of people driving their cars but they actually expect me to pay for the incremental value overy my current ride...

In all seriousness, you pay for this today if you want commercial grade supported software and we're no different except you'll get ours free if you are on MSDN/U or MSDN/E...

re: listening to customers

rickla — Fri, 13 May 2005 21:46:12 GMT

Mike, here's how retail works, volume is different. For retail at the end of each subscription year, you go to the store and buy the "upgrade" box. Currently the upgrade box is $2299. For some promo period (likely 90 days) after VSTS ships, you can go to the store and buy the "Upgrade to VSTS Suite" box for the same price ($2299). That means you do not pay any more to upgrade to VSTS Suite than you would to normally renew your MSDN/U yearly subscription. that's the first year (X). Of course there will be something to deal with the scenario where your subscription runs out in July of this year so you buy a renewal "MSDN/U" box at retail for $2299 and then you feel you have to pay $2299 again in the 90 day promo window. i suspect something like a rebate for time still left on your MSDN/U box subscription,etc. OK, now a year passes and you need to buy another subscription. (note: this is where the retail model separates from the volume license model. At volume license you keep your promo SA price as long as you are current). At that point in time the "renewal price" for retail VSTS Suite is $4600. That's the default (Y) in your question. However, you certainly can downgrade to another subscription, or you can take advantage of any promotion pricing at that time that we'd offer for renewal subscriptions. I don't know what those would be but we are often running that type of promotion. hope this answers the question.

-Rick

re: listening to customers

Jay Oliver — Sat, 14 May 2005 18:50:22 GMT

I'm confused about the actual costs of foundation server, now moreso than ever.

The actual 'server' software costs 2700 or so. What are the licensing terms? I spend 2700, buy the server - what can I do with it? How many users can connect? If it's CAL based, does the purchase of the server get me any to start with? What does each additional one cost?

I see that with these new changes, each 'role' edition of VS.NET 2005 comes with a version that's restricted to 5 users. That's cool and all, but for all of us that need 6 or 7, how do I figure out the total cost?

re: listening to customers

Jay Oliver — Sat, 14 May 2005 19:09:12 GMT

I think these two pages are why I'm confused.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/howtobuy/vs2005/editions/team/ shows a server price of $2799 and a CAL price of $499 a user.

http://blogs.msdn.com/rickla/archive/2005/03.aspx
this blog entry itself, and other comments made me think that you buy the server once at $2799 and it works for however many users you want to throw at it.

Can someone please clear this up for me?

re: listening to customers

Denny Figuerres — Sat, 14 May 2005 19:40:05 GMT

THANKS!

this sounds just about perfect!!!
5 users lets us small guys take the jump, learn the system, pilot a few things and then if/when we need 6 or more logins we buy more.

and 5 is like a "Magic number" used with several other SKU's at MSFT so it "fits"

Good Move and Thanks Again!

re: listening to customers

Greg Wojan — Sat, 14 May 2005 20:08:37 GMT

Okay, now *I'm* confused... I just renewed my MSDN Universal subscription (approx. May 15, 2005 through May 14, 2006). I think I understand that I can upgrade to one of the role based subscriptions when VS.NET 2005 is finally released.

My question is what will it cost me to upgrade to the entire VSTS suite as indicated in your previous comment about renewal prior to the promotional period?

--Greg

re: listening to customers

Greg Wojan — Sat, 14 May 2005 20:09:55 GMT

Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention--this is pretty awesome news! :-)

I was seriously questioning the need/desire to renew my MSDN subscription next year. This proves Microsoft is starting to listen where it really matters. It also keeps me wanting to shovel money your way... ;-)

--Greg

Rick Laplante annonce un Team Foundation Server limit

Christophe Lauer — Sun, 15 May 2005 09:50:34 GMT

Team System for Small Teams

p u b l i c v o i d . d k — Mon, 16 May 2005 09:30:25 GMT

Team System for Small Teams

p u b l i c v o i d . d k — Mon, 16 May 2005 09:31:27 GMT

re: listening to customers

rickla — Mon, 16 May 2005 20:58:56 GMT

Greg - let me try and answer w/ an example. Lets say we ship VSTS September 1 (note, i'm not announcing a ship date here, its just an example... ) For the next 90 days, you can purchase an "upgrade" to VSTS for $2299. Using this example the promotion for retail upgrade to VSTS Suite would then run from September 1 to December 1. Lets say you want to buy the upgrade on Nov 15th. You'd pay the $2299. however, we anticipate some sort of "rebate" based on the amount of your current subscription that's still left (in your case 50% from Nov 15th '05 - May 15th '06). We don't know the exact details but assume that you'd get a refund or discount on the $2299 upgrade to suite based on the value of your current subscription that's left. hope that clarifies this a bit.

-Rick

re: listening to customers

rickla — Mon, 16 May 2005 21:08:56 GMT

one more comment about the retail upgrade. remember that to be eligible for the $2299 upgade, you have to be a current member. so don't let your subscription expire before the promotion. if you are not a current subscriber on the day we ship (Sept 1 on the previous example for Greg), then the offer isn't valid for you.

re: listening to customers

rickla — Mon, 16 May 2005 21:08:32 GMT

Shawn, while i'm not the guy who owns VSTO, i've done some digging. I've been told that VS Tools for Office (VSTO) are available either stand-alone or as part of either MSDN Professional Subscription or as part of MSDN Premium Subscription. That means if you purchased VS Professional with MSDN Professional or Premium subscriptions, you'd get VSTO. Just to be complete, there is another set of tools called ADE, which are additional tools for Access developers. ADE tools can only be found in the MSDN Premium subscription.

thanks,
-Rick

re: listening to customers

Shawn B. — Mon, 16 May 2005 21:39:40 GMT

Thanks Rick for your reply about VSTO.

Thanks,
Shawn

New Team System Stuff - 2005-05-16

Rob Caron's Blog — Tue, 17 May 2005 02:04:23 GMT

Visual Studio Team System

The big news around Team System at the moment is the announcement on Rick...

Interesting blogs and posts

Jónas Antonsson — Tue, 17 May 2005 02:13:00 GMT

I've been reading a lot of interesting stuff lately. I've decided that it is a good idea to post links since others might also be interested in some of the material

Some Thoughts On IBM's Blogging Guidelines

Dare Obasanjo aka Carnage4Life — Tue, 17 May 2005 06:14:51 GMT

re: listening to customers

jack — Tue, 17 May 2005 20:29:57 GMT

Thanks for listening! Thats really great and I mean that. I am curious if there is going to be another announcement about MS listening to another (possibly "the" other) big complaint with the new VS/VSTS which is: include the unit testing features in all versions, quality tools/features should not be restricted to those working in teams.

re: listening to customers

mystere — Tue, 17 May 2005 22:22:36 GMT

Rick, I think what CSS was saying, and you misinterprted with your Porsche comment was this:

Microsoft has had a problemwith security and quality of software running on their platform. This is not just MS products, but also 3rd party products. Now, you guys have made a strong committment to security going forward, but many of us think that if you're really committed to the security of the platform you will also get tools into the hands of developers to improve the security of EVERYONE's apps. By pricing them outside the reach of the average developer, you're saying (in effect) "Yeah, we value security and quality, but not enough to skip making a few bucks off it".

I think that's why people are looking to Microsoft to improve the quality of ALL apps on the platform, not just MS's own, and those that can afford expensive code quality tools.

re: listening to customers

Greg Wojan — Wed, 18 May 2005 05:03:41 GMT

Thanks Rick. ;^)

I think my dense skull has now been penetrated...

--Greg

Microsoft Lowers Pricing for Visual Studio Team System

Microsoft.Net Matters — Wed, 18 May 2005 05:25:06 GMT

In response to criticisms over the high cost of VSTS for small organizations, Microsoft is changing its pricing and some of the packaging of Visual Studio Team System and the MSDN Subscriptions.

Microsoft Lowers Pricing for Visual Studio Team System

Microsoft.Net Matters — Wed, 18 May 2005 05:25:35 GMT

In response to criticisms over the high cost of VSTS for small organizations, Microsoft is changing its pricing and some of the packaging of Visual Studio Team System and the MSDN Subscriptions.

re: listening to customers

Minas Casiou — Wed, 18 May 2005 14:58:47 GMT

RE:Good news: http://blogs.msdn.com/rickla/archive/2005/05/12/416994.aspx">http://blogs.msdn.com/rickla/archive/2005/05/12/416994.aspx MINA, 2005-05-15

RE: Good news: http://blogs.msdn.com/rickla/archive/2005/05/12/416994.aspx">http://blogs.msdn.com/rickla/archive/2005/05/12/416994.aspx Before I start complaining again, let me thank all you guys at Microsoft for LISTENING to us (not meant to be sarcastic etc.). It's great that you're listening to us. Really great. It means we can collectively get what we want/need etc. Thanks again. Whilst it's great that you've come part way to the party and included a 5 user version of TFS with the MSDN Universal, I still think that adding a HIGHER subscription level than MSDN Universal is a bad move. Above all else, it creates more confusion, especially in the first 1-2 years where the transition occurs. It's very de-stabilizing. Corporates have made huge commitments to licensing and understanding the impact of the change & making the actual change is a real nightmare. ***MY Opinion is to***: 1)Keep MSDN Universal as Universal - the Highest MSDN Subscription Level, but increase the price by say 10-30% etc. ro whatever has been done in the past. Don't treat VS.NET 2005 & related tools any different to the rest of the stuff. It's too much time wasted in trying to figure out what you're getting & how much extra it's gonna cost. Time that could be better spent in development. I don't think anyone will reasonably complain about a 10-30% increase in MSDN Universal Subscription rates. Of course keeping it the same or lowering it would be better, but a smallish increase could be easily swallowed by most. So, in summary, with the MSDN Team Suite (change to MSDN Universal, increase price as described above...) you get all the Visual Studio Roles and the 5 user TFS licenses. Costs you 10%-30% more per year & is very easy for everyone to understand. OK, if you want more TFS users, then charge extra for them etc. With the rest of the editions, cut back on these features, but try to get as many people as possible using TFS & the features in the roles such as Unit Testing etc, automated builds etc. Maybe have the MSDN Universal come with 10 TFS licenses, and the next one down with only 1,2 or 3 etc. Even just one, so that they get their hands dirty with it & drum up experience. Don't cut anyone out. It'll just slow adoption of the product & you just don't want that. Leave VSS as an option for whoever wants it, usually just small simple projects, but even a 1 user band can make very good use of TFS and think up new ideas for the product. Also maybe limit the number of systems or something available in the Architect role, or make it or some parts read only etc. within the other roles. Say if you're a dev, allow read-only access to the Architect role features. This way, more people are exposed to the features, see things, start to think about them, and then want them etc. Don't shut them out by making life complicated by way of licensing structures/options & cost. As a guide, I would: Consolidate all the options into half the number of options. Keep MSDN subscription levels as they are & include those options within all of the existing MSDN subscription categories/levels and increase the prices of the higher featured subscriptions, whilst keeping the lowest levels at the same price or dropping them a little, even halving them etc. to get more people onto them, but entice them with a taste of the enterprise level features. Give them a single TFS license - even if half of them never use it. Give them some of the tools they get today for free such as NUnit, and give them (I think it's already there) the MSBuild to make them more productive. Basically, any good practices stuff, including logging/instrumentation, some of the Enterprise Library (which is free etc,) etc. line it all up & give everyone a reason and a platform, from the lowest level, that follows the best practices, so that when they grow up through the subscription levels, they don't have to change the way they do things, they can now just take advantage of the new functionality available. eg. Have NUnit part of VS.NET Express editions etc. When they upgrade to higher level, they get some code coverage tools as well. They don't have to use NUnit as a separate download (that works slightly differently say in an automated build than it does with the version that comes with VStudio). That way, when they consider the upgrade, they see immediate benefits, and NO REWORK! Low barrier to upgrade to more features means they'll be more likely to do it. The converse is that in order to get some nwe features, they'll have to redo all their current stuff, including a new build process etc etc. ==> TOO HARD, too much work on top of the cost of an upgrade. It'll just foster more of a "forget it - too much effort & cost" attitude. You don't want that. You want them to grow with you. You wanna make it easy/attractive for people(new & existing) to move up, and show them the upgrade path & how easy it is to transition between the levels of functionality.

re: listening to customers

Enterprise customer — Thu, 19 May 2005 04:10:57 GMT

As an Enterprise Customer with many Universal Subscriptions, I can say this licensing will mean one thing for us...a reduction in the use of MSDN Subscriptions. Universal Subscriptions should be just that...Universal. The licensing strategy for MSDN Universal has been taking a big turn for the worse lately and I personally hope you have someone else that will buy this pricing adjustment because I can't a compelling reason for us to do so. It is sad that the Universal Developer Subscription models covers everything but the primary products it was originally intended to address.

re: listening to customers

rickla — Thu, 19 May 2005 18:09:33 GMT

Jack - in terms of unit testing in Pro, we did look at that a few months ago and determined that the cost of breaking out the pieces and re-testing in the Pro box was prohibitive at this stage of the cycle. Obviously we also believe that the most value is in the integration w/ code coverage. But we definitely get that unit test stand along would solve a bunch of problems. If i could design the product again, I'd certainly put unit testing in Pro and we are expect to do just that in the next release.

So to answer your question, no there won't be "another great announcement" on the unit testing side until we get out our early releases of the next version.

-Rick

re: listening to customers

rickla — Thu, 19 May 2005 18:29:23 GMT

Mystere - I agree with your point. As an industry we should be building more secure, higher quality apps. We all carry some obligation in doing that. As a platform provider we need to provide the tools to help customers do it. And we will continue to do that. For managed code for instance, we are NOT pulling FxCop from the free SDK. As we add new security related rules to VS Team Dev, we will make sure that they are released as part of the free FxCop as well. What we add in the Team Dev is the integration with the shell and other tools, policy around enforcing static analysis, etc. We also will add new rules that are desirable but not at the "must have for security" level into the VS product that won't be in the free version. Again,we will continue to make the base security tools available broadly. At the same time, as an industry we have to be willing to invest some capital (both IQ and dollar) into improving the situation. If you believe that improving quality and security of your application is so important, then investing some small incremental amount on tools that will help you and your customers seems reasonable as well.

-Rick

re: listening to customers

rickla — Thu, 19 May 2005 18:32:40 GMT

Greg - glad to help but i'm sure its more about our "ability to build a confusing model" than your IQ...

:)

-Rick

re: listening to customers

rickla — Thu, 19 May 2005 18:38:10 GMT

Minas - thx for the suggestions. We've looked at that model for over 2 years now. it has a lot of nice charactaristics but a couple major problems.

First is that not all MSDN customers feel the same way you do. Some want just what they have today and don't need/want the new tools so simply raising the prices uniformly doesn't give people enough choice. Second and most important, it only delays the inevitable. I plan on building more roles into the suite including tools for DBAs, business process analysts, roles and solutions for proper IT governance, etc. There is no way i can invest multiple hundreds of resources incrementally on those additional spaces and then not monitize them. Each of those spaces is hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue each year. its destroying shareholder value (both MS and the industry in general) if we give all that stuff away for free. VS is about developers and will always be. The Team System is about development and will always be broader than VS. We're in a transition phase right now where people are using the "old" definition of VS for the new VSTS model and it seems confusing, leading you to wonder what the heck we're thinking. But when you look at the long term roadmap, I hope you see that VSTS will deliver many more roles and much broader value and it simply cannot be given away as part of a developer tool subscription. VSTS is the development team subscription. It may look like semantics now (yes i've heard that arguement) but it certainly isn't when you look at the broad spectrum of new tools and roles we plan to put in the market. Yes there will be overlap intentionally with the developer because we still believe that's where the 'rubber meets the road'. the developer is still the key part in the development engine but it isn't the only part.

-Rick

re: listening to customers

rickla — Thu, 19 May 2005 18:50:07 GMT

Ent Customer - i'm a bit confused by your comment about "universal covering everything but the core products it was meant to cover". Going forward for the same price you get everything you've had in the past PLUS a new set of tools designed explicitly for the developer (perf tuning tools, unit testing and code coverage, etc). What you don't get is tools meant for other discplines. Yes I know there is overlap in some of these for some customers. Yes I know it would be "great" to get them for free. If you don't think paying the same and getting several thousand dollars worth of new, integrated, world class tools is a good value then i'm not sure what I could do except give you everything. Except then i wouldn't be able to show any revenue so i wouldn't be able to build them in the first place...

-Rick

re: listening to customers

Enterprise Customer — Fri, 20 May 2005 00:44:58 GMT

"MSDN Subscriptions are the best way to get the latest developer tools and technologies, including Visual Studio .NET, with continuous, priority access to product updates and new releases."

"MSDN Universal
Ideal for
Application architecture planning and enterprise team development Ideal for
Enterprise team development Ideal for
Broad range of development, including Web development Ideal for
Testing applications and Web services on Windows technologies Ideal for
Technical reference information and reusable code samples
Highlights
Continuously updated, priority access to:

Technical content
Guaranteed online support
Phone incident support (4)
Microsoft operating systems (limited use rights)
Broad range of Windows Server System products (limited use rights)
Comprehensive set of Microsoft developer tools, including Visual Studio. NET Enterprise Architect 2003
Microsoft Productivity Applications"

These are your marketing team's words...

MSDN Universal has alwass been marketed as the way to get access to the comprehensive set of Microsoft development tools. MSDN Universal retails for $2299-2799 as a yearly subscription. I think the retail value of $10,000+ we have covered for the last 4+ years is relevant and justifies the costs improvements to the platform. That is why we did not just buy Visual Studio as an individual license. We have always had had the expectation that your products should be provide Enteprise support. It is only now that you begin to offer these types of core team services.

I would personally prefer that the Team System client tools be included in the MSDN Universal price (all versions just like what was marketed to be the case with VS 2003) and that TFS remain an optional component like any other Microsoft Server product. If I wanted a Visual Studio Professional subscription, I would have bought it many years ago.

Good News but not quite Mission Accomplished

David — Fri, 20 May 2005 01:54:50 GMT

This is definitely a step in the right direction and address the SourceSafe issue (SourceSafe not being worth the CDs its distributed on).

However, the role functionality needs another look. It is my understanding that the load testing has already been broken out. So we are looking at basic test case management and scripting. And the 'tools' (I use that team loosely) in the 'Architect' version are of SourceSafe quality.

So, I agree with Minas that the TS version should be the universal edition, with may be a small increase (less than $2900).

And I would use the length of time since the last price increase rather than functionality to justify the change. The functionality is expected.

And lastly, since all TF version require an MSDN subscription (which some shops don't have for their developers), they needs to be a more painless upgrade path.

Best of luck,

David

Follow up on Team System pricing

Fri, 20 May 2005 19:52:44 GMT

Rick LaPlante has a great blog entry describing the changes we're making to the pricing of Visual Studio...

re: listening to customers

mystere — Tue, 24 May 2005 17:40:38 GMT

Rick,

While I understand your point of view. I think your comment "If you believe that improving quality and security of your application is so important, then investing some small incremental amount on tools that will help you and your customers seems reasonable as well." illustrates a key security concept that you (and I guess Microsoft itself) are missing.

If you make security an option, most people will opt out of it. The line of thought that says "If you value this, you'll pay for it" ignores the critical fact that most people do *NOT* value security as much as they do their hard earned cash. That's the message that Microsoft is giving as well.

Simply put, if you want the platform to be secure, you can't use security as a way to make more money.

re: listening to customers

John Chorlton — Tue, 24 May 2005 20:36:53 GMT

Hi Rick,

My fellow development team members and I thought your announcement regarding the licensing of the Team Server was really great news, especially since there are three of us and one manager. This sounded like a good move in the right direction and was indeed very encouraging to see you all responding to customer feedback.

Yesterday, all four of us on our team attended the "Visual Studio 2005, Delivering Business Readiness" class in Bellevue so that we could get a better idea of how the whole Team System was integrated. I had hoped to also convince my manager of the value of moving to the Team System. Unfortunately, the class turned out to be a big waste of time due to the most pathetic example of course materials that I think I've ever seen. The course materials were just plain incorrect and the examples were totally non-functional so we were unable to see how the Team System is supposed to integrate the roles in a development process (which is what the course description claimed). I personally would be extremely embarrassed to present such non-functional garbage to my own co-workers let alone potential clients.

I am also now more confused about the Team System licensing scheme. The course instructor said that if we wanted to install Team System components for more than one TS role on a single box then that would require one CAL for each role from which a component was installed. Is this true? If this is true then this would totally blow the 5 CAL Team Server advantage for us because, as I mentioned in my previous post to your site, members of small development teams play multiple roles and need to use the tools for those roles. This sentiment was echoed by many people in the class yesterday. This is one idea that I think Microsoft still fails to understand and is one of the main reasons that many of us in small teams have subscribed to MSDN Universal for so many years.

The bottom line for me is now is, after the class yesterday, listening to the "Visual Studio 2005 / MSDN License Changes & Impact for Customers Using Microsoft Development Tools" webcast last week (which also did not address upgrades for existing MSDN Universal customers) and reading all the conflicting posts from Microsoft on the pricing structure for upgrading from MSDN Universal to Team Suite, I really feel that I cannot recommend an upgrade path to our CIO when the MSDN subscriptions expire next month. It's now looking like we should possibly downgrade our MSDN Universal subscriptions to Enterprise or lower and just continue without Microsoft's process-oriented tools. Disappointingly, Microsoft is definitely not looking like its own shop is "Enterprise-Ready" ...Beta 2 or otherwise.

John Chorlton
Cascade Designs, Inc.

re: listening to customers

Greg Roehm — Wed, 25 May 2005 19:38:17 GMT

Thanks!! I am very pleased with the new model. For a while there I thought Microsoft had dropped the baton at a golden moment in time. Thank again.

re: listening to customers

rickla — Thu, 26 May 2005 00:37:57 GMT

John - I don't know who produced or delivered the class you attended but i'm checking w/ our VS field folks to see if they know. it may have been an external company which obviously we'd have little control over. i'll let you know what I hear on that. We clearly need to be professional and have our demos work in that type of environment.

In terms of your question about licensing, i'm not sure i followed your question precisely but i'll try and answer as best I can. if i get it wrong, feel free to clarify... The TFS 5 user version means 2 things. first, that the server is throttled to allow no more than 5 named users on the server. Second, it means that up to 5 people can connect to the server without purchasing anything else. Your question seemed to be about the CLIENT role based skus. If you currently have MSDN/U subscriptions when we ship later this year you will get one of the role based skus (dev/test/arch) for each MSDN/U license. If you want ALL roles for each person (4 people for you i think) then you would pay incrementally for the Suite. Now, in my post I said that for the 1st year (more precisely for 90 days after we RTM), you can get the Suite upgrade at retail for 2299, which is the SAME cost as MSDN/U retail upgrades today. So the net is, for 90 days after we RTM, you can get (at retail, different for volumen license) the full suite and a server that will scale to 5 people for no more than you'd pay today.

however, i do want to be clear one more time. The 5 user license to TFS is to the server. if you want all the roles for a single person, you have to buy the suite. we are making it cheaper for our best customers (MSDN/U customers) to get the suite so that each person can all of the client roles, but you still need the suite.

hope this clarifies.
-Rick

re: listening to customers

rickla — Thu, 26 May 2005 00:46:24 GMT

mystere - i probably wasn't clear enough based on your post. We are NOT removing any security based features from the "free" bucket, we are not charging for the security rules that we develop (we'll continue to make them available in the DDK and the .NET SDK, etc). What we are doing is charging for more of the "integration and productivity features" built around the security rules that we'll continnue to deliver. I am not trying to monetize security.

You could agrue that we should do "more" or "everything we can" to make it "so easy" to run these rules and therefore even the nice slick integration etc should be free and that's where I disagree. people who don't want to pay for the ease of use/integration still have everything they'll need from us to do their security work w/out paying for the core security features.

-Rick

re: listening to customers

rickla — Thu, 26 May 2005 00:54:06 GMT

David - while i'm not a big VSS fan, there's clearly a lot more value than the cost of the cds... VSS believe it or not is the most used SCC system in the world. Its a fine tool for <10 people who need a single source code repository.

re: the architect tool. Its a beta version but some of our largest customers are already using the logical systems designer and SOA designer to reverse engineer and then deploy SOA based apps in substantially less time than it took them before. If you've got specific concerns about the quality its probably better to post them on the ladybug site instead of making such broad comments here...

-Rick

re: listening to customers

rickla — Thu, 26 May 2005 01:08:34 GMT

Ent Customer - I do understand your point. i've had this discussion with a *few* people...

MSDN/U provided all the tools for a developer. It is not all the tools for every person who works on an engineering project. Testers, archtects, project managers, DBAs, business analysts, etc. You will get the additional tools we've built for devs if you keep the equivalent of MSDN/U (VS Team Edition FOR DEVELOPERS). Other roles in the engineering project have other requirements and needs and we're going to build them but its not someting we're going to include "for free" in the developer product because some devs do that too. we are providing more value to the MSDN/U subscriber (the VS Team Edition for Developers has functionality you'd pay > 2K on top of MSDN/U if you wanted it and you get it for free).

-Rick

re: listening to customers

Fred — Thu, 26 May 2005 21:09:08 GMT

Let's do a scenario:

Company is subscribed to MSDN Universal and has 6 Developers. What will be the cost of upgrade into:

(a) MSDN Premium for Developers with TFS
(b) MSDN Team System

Also, is it possible to convert one of the MSDN subscription into either Architect or Tester edition?

Thanks

re: listening to customers

John Chorlton — Thu, 26 May 2005 22:35:03 GMT

Rick,

I just wanted to make sure that I'm understanding your description of the upgrade costs. When you say that a MSDN Universal subscriber who wants to move to the MSDN Premium with Team Suite would pay the "incremental" or "upgrade" price equivalent to the current MSDN U retail upgrade price of $2299 does that mean "$2299 on top of the current MSDN U subscription cost"?

I'm still a little confused on the upgrade special offer. Let's say that a MSDN U subscriber's subscription runs out in June. Since it sounds like MS won't release VS 2005 to manufacturing until the end of the year, the offer would be good until March 2006 - correct? Does the mean that the subscriber would have to then pay $2299 by the end of March 2006 to upgrade to Team Suite and then in June 2006 pay another 2*$2299=$4598 to renew the MSDN Premium w/Team Suite subscription?

In our case, I think that we have an Enterprise Agreement so those prices get a bit muddled but I just wanted to get a rough idea of what we need to do now.

By the way, the class that we attended was through Asentus but it looked like the course materials came directly from Microsoft. Don't get me wrong, the presenter was great but the lab materials looked like an outline from Beta 1 and totally destroyed the effectiveness of the class. Here's the class description: http://www.msreadiness.com/vs2005.asp

Regards,
John

Немного о ценах на Visual Studio Team System

Gaidar's Blog — Sat, 28 May 2005 22:55:07 GMT

Нашел в сети блог в котором происходит обсуждение цен на TS.Если Вам есть что с

Team Foundation Question

BrentO — Thu, 02 Jun 2005 22:32:13 GMT

My team consists of six developers each of them has Universal and will be upgrading to one of the team editions. Technically we would have six - five person team foundation instances. My guess is we could not pool these. Will we have to acquire Team Foundation Server ($2500) and the cals ($3000)?

On a side note we bought Universal with 3 year Software Assurance because we were told, promised in fact, that it would include everything "new" that would come out development related. I want to highlight the words/terminology used "everything new”, “Universal", and "Software Assurance". I have talked with multiple developers from different organizations and they were under the same impression, this blog along with many others reinforce that perception. You have to realize that people are going to feel cheated when Universal with software assurance was marketed and sold under this premise.

Visio EA question

Mosaic — Sun, 05 Jun 2005 21:03:44 GMT

Currently MSDN Universal includes Visio Enterprise Architect. I checked the detailed product information for VS2005 but this only mentions Visio professional. I regularly use the database modelling and especially the reverse-engineering functionality of Visio EA, and I would like to know which version of VS 2005 will allow me to do that.

re: listening to customers

rickla — Mon, 06 Jun 2005 17:33:18 GMT

Brent - yes on the server (2799), no on the CALs. the CALs are included w/ the VSTS client editions that each of your 6 devs would have as part of the MSDN/U upgrade. As you add devs 7 - 1000, you won't need a different server license. it will scale. Assuming you add 20 more devs (each w/ a VSTS client edition of some sort), you pay the client sku cost and nothing more for CAL or the integration/TFS server.

On the side note, I do understand people's issue re: Universal. I knew it was going to be a challenge when we started to explain the transition from universal to the MSDN Premium subscription service. I understand some people feel "let down". I'm trying to mitigate that by doing the promotional pricing and upgrades. We didn't just rename MSDN/U to "VS Pro + MSDN Premium" (which is the functional equivalent) and then say "if you want any of VSTS, you have to pay for it". We are trying to make the MSDN/U customer "whole" by giving them the VSTS developer tools (or the choice of another role) included in their subscription.

-Rick

re: listening to customers

Anonymous — Wed, 08 Jun 2005 03:29:32 GMT

Could you please answer John Chorlton's questions?

They are doubly important for developers like myself outside of the USA, where we already pay disproportionately more per developer just to have an MSDN Universal subscription due to the exchange rate relative to the cost of living here.

Convincing the management to move from Java to .NET is doubly difficult now that we know the heavily trumpeted productivity benefits that come with Team System will carry a hefty pricetag in excess of the existing cost of Visual Studio/MSDN.

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