Tim Anderson's ITWriting
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April 3, 2006Who's using Team System?Posted 1613 days ago on April 3, 2006Team System is gold - has been since late last month - but who's using it? I'm keen to hear from early adopters; if you're willing to be quoted in a forthcoming review, please comment here or email me - tim(at)itwriting.com - mentioning your company and url if possible. I'd also like to hear from Microsoft developers who have taken a look but are not adopting it, with your reasons: Too expensive? Not true Test-Driven Development? Too heavyweight or slow? I'm speculating; but I can see that it is not going to suit everyone. Tags: teamsystem Re: Who's using Team System?Posted 1613 days ago by Tim Anderson • • • ReplyVery interesting, thanks. I agree, it is hard to make sense of the pricing and licensing (it is so complex that Microsoft has a white paper on the subject), which does seem to cut out smaller development teams. |
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Re: Who's using Team System?
Posted 1613 days ago by Sean Hederman • • www • ReplyWay, way, way too expensive. I live in South Africa, and whilst our economy is doing pretty well, our exchange rate is about R6.2 to the $, which puts Team Suite at about R68,000 + R21,700 renewal. To put this in context, a VERY top level developer like me is lucky to have take-home income of R25,000/month, which means if I saved ALL the money I took home, I'd take 3 months to be able to afford VSTS, and a renewal would cost me a full months salary. Dunno about you but saying sayonara to 30% of my annual take-home is not gonna happen.
I've played a bit with VSTS, and frankly the pieces I've played with add value, but not so much that I'd be willing to part with more than about $1,000 pa for it (over & above VS Pro). What I do note is that many of the "features" such as reliable source control that VS developers have been begging for since VB5 days is only available in this system. There's many components in it that I feel are very useful indeed, even for non-Enterprise projects. The built-in testing and profiling are big advantages, as is the whole DSM concept. Throw in SDLC control and issue tracking and integration and you have a really nice product. Unfortunately most of that is stuff that should have been in VS Pro 5 years ago.
I've know of 4 senior South African architects who feel that VSTS is a clear sign from MS that the days of "Developers, developers, developers" is over, and that "gouge, gouge, gouge" is the new mantra. At least two are relooking at the Eclipse Java stack in order to be able to stay competitive in the enterprise space.
The smaller companies simply cannot afford this tool for their developers, and as such, in order to compete effectively with those who can afford it, many feel that they cannot stick with the MS stack. My attitude so far is that I'll just use things like NUnit, SubVersion, and Red Ant Profiler to close up the gaps that should have been filled by VS Pro, many years ago.
I'm an independant contractor, who would dearly love to have VSTS, but simply cannot afford it. I've had numerous great ideas that would work fantastically in VSTS, such as creating DSMs for document imaging and workflow (an area I specialise in), but since I can't afford it, no dice. Irritating. MS can harp on about how this product is not meant for people like me as much as they like, but the fact of the matter is that VSTS contains many features that SHOULD be in Pro, and many features that are more and more relevant to the non-Enterprise developer.
I'm adopting a wait-and-see approach. If VSTS continues to get most of the new goodies, and there's no trickle-down into Pro, then I'm going to seriously have to reconsider my commitment to MS.