VSTS Architect vs. VSTS Developer

VSTS Architect vs. VSTS Developer

• ajl

  I absolutely agree. The packaging of Architect -v- Developer makes no sense to me. The architect edition should include all the developer tools  - people don't suddenly stop doing development just because they get a grand title such as "architect" !
  

• Karthik.T

  "anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com" wrote in message news:092ad81c-1b79-4b72-9c12-10c04c09320d@discussions.microsoft.com...
  
  > I believe that I need both architecture and development tools. Which out of two should I go for
  
  If you really need the tools from more than one edition then you need to upgrade your MSDN Universal to one edition (doesn't matter which) for free and then purchase the upgrade to Team Suite. See the question "What should an MSDN Universal subscriber do if the subscriber needs more than one Visual Studio Team System role product during the transition " in the FAQ
  
  http://msdn.microsoft.com/howtobuy/vs2005/transition/
  http://msdn.microsoft.com/howtobuy/vs2005/faq/
  
  Another option is to wait until VS 2005 is released to make a decision. According to the FAQ, existing MSDN subscribers will get a 180 day evaluation copy of Team Suite and Team Foundation server. That would allow you to evaluate the various tools and decide if you really need to buy Team Suite or if you could get by with one of the other editions. Of course this only works if your MSDN subscription doesn't expire too soon. My MSDN subscription expires in September. If VS2005 comes out before then, I'll need to make my choice by September or lose the one time upgrade price. Annoyingly there doesn't seem to be a web page that shows which tools are included in which Team System edition so choosing between Architect and Developer and Tester is a little difficult.
  

• Tvercel

  If you truly need both, you should go for Suite - which gives you all the features of all 3 products but costs twice as much.  The Developer edition has the most value IMO. However, it's features (mainly unit testing and code analysis) are also the easiest to replace with open source tools (though I don't know if Fxcop for .NET 2.0 will exist outside of VSTS).
  
  

• __ted_glaza

  The thing I'm not comfortable with is the exagerated price of Team Suite. But you still don't get everything you need from that package (-> Team foundation server).

  
  

• jbowers

  The information was interesting but too high-level to be really useful or answer the questions I feel most developers have. I hope you folks will be releasing something with a bit of meat on it like a feature by feature breakdown of what is included in each edition in the near future.
  

• magiccode9

  I completely agree with the rest of the software developers.  Essentially, you seem to be tanking the Team product before it gets out the door (for debugging by your MSDN user base) by pricing it out of the market.  At this price, almost no one will get the team system and it will never be the product that it could be.   For source control that actually works, an integrated UML tool and unit testing, I can just get SourceVault for $300, NUnit for $0 and continue to use Visio. 
  
  Perhaps doing a study of what your customers actually do with their day may help.  Now that the dotcom days are over, VERY few dev teams have separate developers, architects, business analysts and testers.  Usually, in my experience,  architects may do some combination of coding, business analysis,  and project management in addition to design.  And when the coding is done, EVERYONE tests.  Likewise, developers are encouraged to learn about design patterns and become comfortable with design decisions by working with the architect's tools. 
  
      By hard-coding the separation of these roles, it seems that you are limiting your market to only those teams that just happen to have one person / team per role and have the pockets to fund all of that.  I have always seen Microsoft as a provider of software tools to allow developers to create software, unrestrained, for a reasonable price.  These changes seem to be a departure from that.
  
  .....IMHO
  
  
  
  

• SvenP

  I also have to agree with you. I am an independent consultant and I have been a MSDN Universal Subscriber for 9 years.  I just received my annual renewal letter and was browsing the newsgroups when I discovered this new twist to the MSDN Subscriptions.
  
  I have to admit, that I am now very confused about what each subscription offers.  As a consultant, I have many hats that I ware.  I spend 50% of my time as an architect and 50% of my time as a developer.  I need both sets of tools, but I cant afford to pay $9,000 per year to get them. What is Microsoft thinking.
  
  I have no clue as to what version I should pick, Architect or Developer. What Microsoft is asking me to do is to make the following choice, "Do I want my Right Arm cut off, or do I want my Left Arm cut off." My answer is that I don't want any arms cut off.
  
  The important point is that I do not need "Team Integration", but I most definetly need "Tools Integration" and a complete suite of tools. It is also important to understand that the reason I am a good developer is because I am an architect and the reason I am a good architect is because I am a developer. In the real world as a consultant I usually get all of my projects because I am a developer first, but the customer always calls me back for the second project because they discover that I am also an architect.
  
  Why doesn't Microsoft offer the complete suite with a Single User Cal.  Call it the Premium Consultant version that includes everything.
  
  This is just my 2 cents.
  
  
  
  
  
  

• radone

  Thank you all for your feedback. I encourage you to follow Rob Caron's Hitchhiker's Guide to Team System series of posts here:
  
  http://blogs.msdn.com/robcaron/archive/2005/04/15/408426.aspx
  
  Part II will cover Pricing and Licensing of VSTS and should be posted this week.
  
  We're hearing your concerns in these forums, in the blogs, and in the MSDN Product Feedback Center, and hope to address the issues raised by small-shops and independent consultant/developers.
  
  Stay tuned!
  
  Thanks,
  Ajay Sudan
  
  

• dmead001

  Well, I had read opinions like this all over the groups in the last weeks, I think the better answer (no official of course) for this inquiries comes from Erik Sink:
  http://software.ericsink.com/entries/vsts_pricing.html
  
  I recommend to read this entry, the conclusion from Erik: VSTS (at least this version) has a very specific market: Enterprise accounts with lots of devs (and lots of problems related to the size of the organization), this is the space that today companies like IBM (Rational) and other vendors reach; and that's the market that MS is trying to enter ...
  
  
  

• Marvs

  Like loads of other people, I must admit that I am not very comfortable with these changes.
  
  Somehow or other, I've always had this impression that the 'Architect' version of something would have everything that the 'Developer' version has plus a lot more.
  
  I just don't think it is pratical that the 'Architect' version doesn't have all developer tools..
  My guess is that most of the people who need 'Architect' version would at some point or other have a need for the the 'Developer' version too..(for me, I am pretty certain, that I'd need both from day 1. Just that ways things are now - it is going to cost MUCH more to have both of them....)
  
  
  
  

• Michael Entin SSIS

  I read the article, and it is interesting.  However I am one of the people that actually doesn't abuse my MSDN license.  I think part of the problem may be my lack of clarity on what is/isn't included in each Team System product.  I don't need anything (currently) to share my work with multiple developers/architects on a team, since I'm the whole team.  I do still need Source Control, full featured debugging/testing and development tools and test platforms.  I have been really looking forward to the diagramming functionality - diagrams that are synched in realtime to the actual code.  From the info I've read so far, it seems I may not get all of this unless I buy the full Team System.  But maybe I'm mistaken.  I couldn't actually find a detailed  feature-by-feature comparison of each version.
  
  Maybe things would be better if MS would make more clear what they're exluding from each version.  Maybe I don't need the stuff in the Architect or Tester version.  However, considering I do fill those roles, and with having little more than the product names to go on, it seems like I may have to do without stuff I do need if I'm going to follow as best I can MS'es recommend software development lifecycle.
  

• bayu

  I agree.  It is clear that MS has forgotten about a very common developer here and that is the guy who works alone wears many hats. I need modeling, requirements, programming and testing in a single package. I have this in Borland products and am disappointed at this new scheme for VS.Net.  You should not have to pay the huge suite price to get this functionality. This will simply force many developers to purchase tools elsewhere and settle for the developer only version of Team System.
  
  

• ion lucian

  I work in a very small company, just three full time developers.  We each have all hats, and although I would like team system down the line for all of us management wouldn't buy it and I'm content with the free toolset available plus normal visual studio in the meantime until the cost benefit ratio is a bit better.
  
  Now, we are a partner with a large company with thousands of developers and they have architects, developers, qa, etc.  They run C# standard - yes, you read that right.  Due to the cost of development software they opted for just C# standard edition rather than visual studio professional.
  
  So, if both small and large companies won't spend out on it where is Microsoft's market for the team products
  
  They should bite the bullet, make the server 'integral' to the suite, merge it into a single package and keep the price of one single component (or a little lower).
  
  

• bharathvv

  I want to echo the concern of the other posters here...  I have had an MSDN Universal Subscription for 3 years now.  I do ALL of the tech-related work at my company (as well as some independent stuff).  I am the architect, developer, tester, web admin, ...  It sounds like all of the sudden I'm going to need to pay a lot more to get the functionality that MS says is important for all of these tasks.  I have recently started to switch over to C# from Delphi... maybe I should consider staying with Delphi (the top level versions are generally available for much cheaper than the advertised price for previous users).  Where's the (reasonably-priced) product for all the 1-person-do-it-all development companies
  
• VSTS Architect vs. VSTS Developer