Proposed MSDN Subscription Changes - VERY BAD!!!

N

news.microsoft.com

I urge every developer who has an MSDN subscription (Universal) to petition
MS to change their proposed ideas on Visual Studio Team Suite (VSTS).
Depending on what you read, they are proposing to not include it or raise
the price to between $5,000 and $10,000. Every developer who has helped MS
make loads of cash of these past many years needs to write to them. Let
them know they are about to alienate the one group that always and
consistently helps them be successful. It is the most ridiculous thing
they've ever proposed. Unbelievable!!!

http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/produ...edbackId=2b58b8db-5bba-4dfc-be10-78ad43686b3b


MICROSOFT PLEASE RECONSIDER. YOU WILL LOSE SALES. YOU WILL ALIENATE ALL
CLASSES OF DEVELOPERS!

We are the ones that stick up for you when everyone bashes MS.

Help us help you!

GClark
 
T

Teemu Keiski

Maybe you should read this
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2005/mar05/03-21VS2005PR.asp

Here's a snippet:

No-Cost Upgrades for Active MSDN Universal Subscribers

Existing MSDN Universal subscribers can enjoy a seamless transition to
Visual Studio 2005 Team System and automatically receive a no-cost upgrade
to one of the role-based subscription products for each active subscription
license they own at the time of product availability. Special upgrade
pricing to the Team Suite also will be available. Active subscribers may
elect to renew their subscription and preserve their existing pricing for
future renewals, if they choose; customers without subscriptions, or
customers whose subscriptions have lapsed at the time of product
availability, will not receive these special pricing offers.
 
F

Frans Bouma [C# MVP]

news.microsoft.com said:
I urge every developer who has an MSDN subscription (Universal) to petition
MS to change their proposed ideas on Visual Studio Team Suite (VSTS).
Depending on what you read, they are proposing to not include it or raise
the price to between $5,000 and $10,000. Every developer who has helped MS
make loads of cash of these past many years needs to write to them. Let
them know they are about to alienate the one group that always and
consistently helps them be successful. It is the most ridiculous thing
they've ever proposed. Unbelievable!!!

http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/produ...edbackId=2b58b8db-5bba-4dfc-be10-78ad43686b3b


MICROSOFT PLEASE RECONSIDER. YOU WILL LOSE SALES. YOU WILL ALIENATE ALL
CLASSES OF DEVELOPERS!

We are the ones that stick up for you when everyone bashes MS.

I don't see the problem. MSDN universal is an individual license. This
means that it's not a 'team' who licenses MSDN Universal. Though 'team
system' is only really effective if you use it in a team. As an
individual, there is not that much value in a large team system
installation, as it requires a lot of resources an individual probably
doesn't have (i.e.: installing it all on your laptop isn't recommended).

FB
 
D

Dick Grier

Microsoft has urged users to purchase a MSDN Universal (I think)
subscription RSN. Current users will be grandfathered in. That is, they
will not have to pay the increased license cost and will be able to enjoy
VSTS using the current licensing structure. Only new licensees, those who
purchase AFTER the change will be affected.

Dick

--
Richard Grier (Microsoft Visual Basic MVP)

See www.hardandsoftware.net for contact information.

Author of Visual Basic Programmer's Guide to Serial Communications, 4th
Edition ISBN 1-890422-28-2 (391 pages) published July 2004. See
www.mabry.com/vbpgser4 to order.
 
G

gaidar

Hey! It's not a reason to worry! Just think about your own subscription -
you'll get new Team System for free!

Don't even try to make developers against MS or will stay against you! :))

Gaidar
 
N

news.microsoft.com

I'm glad to see they've addressed this somewhat. I'm still a little worried
about the trend though.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2005/mar05/03-21VS2005PR.asp

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2005/mar05/03-21DevToolsPricing.asp

One of my points is also that we developers are also the ones who often
recommend the tools to use for development to various companies we do work
for. If we cannot evaluate the product, we cannot recommend it. I need to
be able so see what the tools offer before I can recommend them. Not only
the tools, but Office products, the various servers, etc. We are directly
and indirectly responsible for many sales for MS.

As far as cost goes, I've usually been able to make the company I'm working
for at the time purchase MSDN. It is far easier to get $2500 approved than
it would be to get $5000, or even $10000. Those times when I have to
purchase MSDN myself would make it prohibitively expensive for me to
purchase. As a developer, I want all the tools I can get my hands on to
make my life as easy as possible. Often times, I work standalone, so I need
to use all the tools to get the job done. I suspect there are many one-man
shops out there. And, for those times when I have to work with others, I at
least want to know how to use the tools that we'll all be using. It is
critical that I get to at the very least familiarize myself with those
tools.

I have always supported MS and will continue to do so. I just want to make
sure they take care of me (and us) as a loyal developer, user, and
salesperson. I would hate to have to switch to a different platform because
the cost is prohibitive. I would hate to have to downgrade my subscription
and not be able to use the advanced tools because of cost. I've been able
to be a better developer and salesperson for MS because I've always had
access to the full line of products via Universal. It just feels like that
may change when they start tweaking with prices and levels. Universal means
Universal.
 
S

Scott M.

I think you (and MS) have forgotten about the individual developer
consultant like myself who needs all the roles and doesn't want to buy 4
licenses to get them.
 
S

Steve C. Orr [MVP, MCSD]

There is a good deal of stuff in Team System that even lone developers could
benefit from. Profiling, Bug Tracking, Architechting Tools, Testing Tools,
etc.
I agree that Microsoft should be looking out for the little guy here. An
MSDN subscription costs a lot of money for individual consultants, but at
least it used to mean that they'd get everything they need. It no longer
seems to mean that, so what good is it to pay all that money?
 
G

Gerhard Menzl

Steve said:
There is a good deal of stuff in Team System that even lone developers
could benefit from. Profiling, Bug Tracking, Architechting Tools,
Testing Tools, etc.

Two questions:

1. Does that mean that there will be a $2,500 edition of Visual Studio
2005 which does *not* include a profiler?

2. Can anybody come up with a link to a comprehensive overview of which
edition is going to comprise what?


--
Gerhard Menzl

#dogma int main ()

Humans may reply by replacing the thermal post part of my e-mail address
with "kapsch" and the top level domain part with "net".
 
E

Eric

news.microsoft.com said:
One of my points is also that we developers are also the ones who often
recommend the tools to use for development to various companies we do work
for. If we cannot evaluate the product, we cannot recommend it.

Great point!

But:
1) MS doesn't really care if you recommend it or not, based on the
proposed pricing. They are targetting a high-end niche, and most of us
aren't teally able to steer that segment of the market.
2) The very high "per seat" price puts this out of consideration for
small or medium sized companies, anyway. It only makes sense for large
companies. Large companies would likely have their own architects to
evaluate the system, and they have enough discretionary money to buy
licenses for evaluation purposes. I'd expect MS to give them free
evaluation licenses also, depending on how much business they do with MS.

It's fine with me if Microsoft targets a new high-end market segment
that has not been well-served by VSS and Visio. I am happy that they're
finally trying to compete in the full life-cycle arena, and they deserve
to make a reasonable return on their investment.

I'm sad that I won't be able to go down that road with them, but I
understand the market segment they are targetting, and it not a segment
I work in at this time.

Eric
 
S

Sean Hederman

Eric said:
Great point!

But:
1) MS doesn't really care if you recommend it or not, based on the
proposed pricing. They are targetting a high-end niche, and most of us
aren't teally able to steer that segment of the market.

I think what he means is that independent consultants and ISV's often
recommend software to customers. I know that in the last 6 months my
personal recommendations have netted MS about $75,000. It's difficult to
advise people about software you don't have access to however. Due to the
new licensing options and costs, I'll be getting Professional for myself
when my current contractee's subscription expires. Whilst they have made
Professional more attractive, it means I won't have access to the
enterprise-level server tools. Therefore, when looking at enterprise level
software I'll have to consider looking at non-MS alternatives. When
providing advice for SDLC tools I won't be able to recommend VSTS. I've
heard talk about the 120-day trial, but frankly I feel that to put an SDLC
tool through it's paces one has to run it through a full dev cycle. I
certainly don't often get so lucky as to run through a project in under 120
days.

Now, I DO understand that VSTS is a developers product so it doesn't make
sense to provide it at cut rate to developers. However, most of the stuff I
was looking for was incidental to VSTS. I was under the impression that
Whidbey would be coming with a decent source control system, and built-in
defect tracking integration, along with testing and profiling tools.
Frankly, everything else is nice, but not neccesary. What I want to know is
why they couldn't just spent some time integrating tools like NCover, NUnit,
NProf and so forth into a coherent whole in Whidbey for the lower end of the
market. We've only been asking for something like that since VB4.

Another option would have been to provide the standard 5 CAL, 1 Server
license for Universal subscriptions. Then MS could charge a fortune for
extra CAL's. They wouldn't lose any revenue since the people/companies who
wouldn't need to purchase more CAL's wouldn't be buying VSTS anyway.
Instead, they've seriously irritated the small ISV's and consultants.
Another irritant has been the high-handed attitude coming out from MS that
us non-Enterprise developers don't actually need or use SDLC tools. Earth to
MS: we do, albeit we don't need massive systems like VSTS. I think the main
problem has been the whole way this was marketed. We were informed about all
the wonders of Team System for ages and ages, and not once did I hear it
mentioned that this was not going to be part of the standard MSDN package.
So make us drool, and then pull the rug from under our feet. I believe
that's the reason there's so much anger.
 
J

Juan T. Llibre

re:
What I want to know is why they couldn't just spent some time integrating
tools like NCover, NUnit, NProf and so forth into a coherent whole in
Whidbey for the lower end of the market.

Because if they did that, they'd be accused of undermining
those products, and establishing a monopoly ?

You'd do well to take a look at :
http://dotnetjunkies.com/WebLog/christopherbowen/archive/2004/06/07/15677.aspx
and see how many products are touched by VSTS.

I have a feeling those are many more products than you've given
consideration to, and that the developers who are working on them
might not feel the same way you do when you demand that similar
tools be included in a Microsoft product which is not VSTS,
and which -furthermore- is available at a very low price.

I know it's easy to demand lots of tools at a very cheap price,
but the plain fact is that you can have most of those tools for
*no price at all*, or for a lot less than what VSTS will cost.

If you need to have Enterprise features, you will need to pay for them,
since providing Enterprise tools to developers who are not a part of
Enterprise teams, and who want to have Enterprise tools for cheap,
doesn't make much sense, business-wise.

If a developer has need for less features than VSTS,
that developer can always buy VS.NET "Standard"
for about $300. That's not a bad deal.

Home enthusiasts and small developers will even be able
to purchase Visual Web Developer or any of the Express
line of products for just $49, which is a great deal!

As far as VS, if "Standard" is not enough, then "Professional" might do.
They will, both, be considerably cheaper that VSTS.

What you can't expect is that Enterprise-level
Team Tools be available on the cheap plan.
 
S

Sean Hederman

Juan T. Llibre said:
re:

Because if they did that, they'd be accused of undermining
those products, and establishing a monopoly ?

They're free, it'd be a bit difficult to accuse MS of taking over a market
when one doesn't exist. They don't seem to give a damn about, say,
integrating Office 2003 style toolbars, and there are plenty of those out in
the marketplace, free and otherwise. Anyway I was thinking more about MS
working with those projects to help them interoperate better, and then
shipping those projects with VS. I don't think you can be accused of
undermining a product when you ship it with your flagship tool.
You'd do well to take a look at :
http://dotnetjunkies.com/WebLog/christopherbowen/archive/2004/06/07/15677.aspx
and see how many products are touched by VSTS.

Ummm, yeah, but, the Build Tools market is already hit by MSBuild, the
Source Control by SourceSafe, leaving only Testing, Profiling and
RAD/Modelling/Management. All I was asking for was to include Testing and
Profiling tools. Oh yeah, and to give us a decent SourceControl tool to
replace that dog that is VSS.
I have a feeling those are many more products than you've given
consideration to, and that the developers who are working on them
might not feel the same way you do when you demand that similar
tools be included in a Microsoft product which is not VSTS,
and which -furthermore- is available at a very low price.

But this is entirely my point! I don't WANT all that extra stuff. All I
wanted is what's been on the top of every developers wish list since the
days of VB4, a decent source control with a bit of integration to a decent
issue tracker and maybe some assistance on the testing and profiling front.
The fact that there are so many free products out there that do these things
indicates that the market for these tools has become commoditised. The
reason? They're what *every* developer *needs*, not wants. Since they are
commodities.

As for VSTS, it is indeed available at a lower price than its competitors.
Such a situation does not make it cheap. The Enterprise SDLC market has been
overheating for years now, with insane pricing for little comparative
benefit. MS is just adding another (slightly cheaper) product to that pile.
Considering their reputation for not getting products polished until v3, I
think that they'll have a tough sell.
I know it's easy to demand lots of tools at a very cheap price,
but the plain fact is that you can have most of those tools for
*no price at all*, or for a lot less than what VSTS will cost.

Yes, but they don't work together nicely.
If you need to have Enterprise features, you will need to pay for them,
since providing Enterprise tools to developers who are not a part of
Enterprise teams, and who want to have Enterprise tools for cheap,
doesn't make much sense, business-wise.

Actually it does. The vast majority of developers out there do not work for
large enterprises, but they do write hundreds of applications and tools that
are part of what makes Windows appealing to the public at large. However,
said public is getting fed up with perceived Microsoft application
unreliability and lack of security. A fair portion of this perception comes
from buggy, badly designed, and poorly tested applications supplied by the
hordes of developers out there. Microsoft has always recognised the
developer market as a strategic one for the rest of the company, and
accepted therefore that it's developer tools areas can be loss leaders.
Until now. You can read my post
http://codingsanity.blogspot.com/2005/03/is-microsoft-losing-plot.html on
this very topic.
If a developer has need for less features than VSTS,
that developer can always buy VS.NET "Standard"
for about $300. That's not a bad deal.

Home enthusiasts and small developers will even be able
to purchase Visual Web Developer or any of the Express
line of products for just $49, which is a great deal!

As far as VS, if "Standard" is not enough, then "Professional" might do.
They will, both, be considerably cheaper that VSTS.

And this is exactly the high-handed attitude I was talking about. "If a
developer has need for less features than VSTS". What makes a developer
require less features? Well, the fact that they're not an Enterprise
developer. Nothing to do with their skill, or their role in development, or
with the difficulty of projects they're working on, merely with the size of
the customer.
What you can't expect is that Enterprise-level
Team Tools be available on the cheap plan.

Why not? Biztalk is, and it costs WAY more than VSTS. Admittedly, it is only
available for development and VSTS is a development tool, but as I've
pointed out in this and previous posts, providing *some* portions of VSTS to
everyone will assist developers in creating higher-quality products for
strategic Microsoft products like Biztalk, Windows, SQL Server, and Office.
Alternatively, providing a cheap (possibly scaled down) VSTS server and 5
CALs for small development teams *that would never have been able to buy
VSTS anyway*, and simply making the additional CALs expensive would not only
assist the smaller teams and allow them to compete head-on with Enterprises,
but would also keep VSTS as a major revenue stream. Imagine that in 2 years
I'm hired to head up a large Enterprise team. Well, I certainly wouldn't
recommend VSTS for such a scenario, since I've never used it, instead I'd
put in place the OSS SDLC tools that I've been using up till that point. If
said team had a large amount of time to evaluate products like VSTS, well
then I might push it, but how often does that happen in practise?

Now consider that if you're not using VSTS, Universal subscription adds no
new development tools. Add to that the fact that if you have Professional
you no longer have access to the server systems other than SQL Developer.
Once again, if I don't use Biztalk or Sharepoint I'm going to have
difficulty in pushing them as solutions. Basically, VSTS has hijacked MS's
entire long-term strategic vision for a dubious short-term commercial gain.
Not the kind of forward thinking I expect from MS.

So, what they've done is ensure that the people who actually adore MS
products enough to buy their own subscriptions to MSDN do not have access to
a product that such people would invariable push at their customers. As I
said in my previous post, the poor way this whole saga has been communicated
has led to a poisoning of attitudes towards MS from consultants and small
ISVs, and for what? To ensure that MS don't lose out on a VSTS revenue
stream they would never have anyway.

For me, I don't really care about VSTS. I work (fairly) happily with the
tools that already exist, and I haven't seen anything so compelling in VSTS
that I'm completely distraught at not having access to it. I am concerned
about a couple of things though:
- Microsoft have finally listened to what their dev community has been
screaming for for almost a decade now, and provided it only to their larger
customers.
- Microsoft have decided to put the server development licenses out of
normal developers and small ISV's reach.
- They've decided to completely skew the playing field in favour of the
Enterprise customers.
- They've decided to put short-term profits before long-term strategy.
- They've communicated this is an arrogant and dismissive way.

Those are what I'm worried about, not this whole VSTS brouhaha, that's small
fry. I'm worried that the above might become a trend.
 
J

Juan T. Llibre

This is not one of those topics where
someone *must* be right and someone *wrong*.

If you feel that strongly, post your viewpoints about
where you think Visual Studio should head to at:

http://forums.microsoft.com/forums/

Those Forums are manned by VS Program Managers,
and are the best communications media to get the right
people to listen to, and possibly act on, your VS suggestions.

Filling a bunch of developer newsgroups with what amounts
to spam, even though it's an interesting topic, isn't the best
course of action.

Back to coding, and leaving marketing to marketers.
 
T

Tim Ellison

FB,

Your argument, although convincing, is weak. The same argument could be applied to Sharepoint. What's really the purpose of Sharepoint Server in MSDN Univ. since it doesn't truly do any good unless there is someone with whom to collaborate. The same could apply any number of servers included in the subscription.

The purpose of the majority of users who subscribe is to have at their access, any of the included Microsoft products with which to conduct research and eventually propose a solution to their clients (meaning product and licensing sales for Microsoft). If Microsoft is concerned about releasing Team System due to licensing issues, fine. Include Team System with a 1 user license. The tool is touted as being the replacement for VSS after all and it's important (as a consultant who proposes Microsoft solutions) that we know more than the client.

--
TIM ELLISON
Frans Bouma said:
I urge every developer who has an MSDN subscription (Universal) to petition
MS to change their proposed ideas on Visual Studio Team Suite (VSTS).
Depending on what you read, they are proposing to not include it or raise
the price to between $5,000 and $10,000. Every developer who has helped MS
make loads of cash of these past many years needs to write to them. Let
them know they are about to alienate the one group that always and
consistently helps them be successful. It is the most ridiculous thing
they've ever proposed. Unbelievable!!!

http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/produ...edbackId=2b58b8db-5bba-4dfc-be10-78ad43686b3b


MICROSOFT PLEASE RECONSIDER. YOU WILL LOSE SALES. YOU WILL ALIENATE ALL
CLASSES OF DEVELOPERS!

We are the ones that stick up for you when everyone bashes MS.

I don't see the problem. MSDN universal is an individual license. This
means that it's not a 'team' who licenses MSDN Universal. Though 'team
system' is only really effective if you use it in a team. As an
individual, there is not that much value in a large team system
installation, as it requires a lot of resources an individual probably
doesn't have (i.e.: installing it all on your laptop isn't recommended).

FB
 
F

Frans Bouma [C# MVP]

Tim said:
FB,

Your argument, although convincing, is weak. The same argument could
be applied to Sharepoint. What's really the purpose of Sharepoint
Server in MSDN Univ. since it doesn't truly do any good unless there
is someone with whom to collaborate. The same could apply any number
of servers included in the subscription.

The purpose of the majority of users who subscribe is to have at
their access, any of the included Microsoft products with which to
conduct research and eventually propose a solution to their clients
(meaning product and licensing sales for Microsoft). If Microsoft is
concerned about releasing Team System due to licensing issues, fine.
Include Team System with a 1 user license. The tool is touted as
being the replacement for VSS after all and it's important (as a
consultant who proposes Microsoft solutions) that we know more than
the client.

It turned out I hadn't read all of the stuff and misinterpreted it. I
since have a different opinion, and I wrote a lengthy piece of text
about that on my blog so I'm not going to repeat it here. Short story:
my opinion expressed here earlier is not the one I have now about the
same subject :)

FB

--
 

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