Visual Studio 2010 and The Ultimate Offer

Today Microsoft announcedthe availability of Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 to MSDN subscribers. Non MSDN Subscribers will have to wait until Oct-21 to get the beta. Beta 2 comes with a Go-Live license allowing you to begin using Visual Studio 2010 in production - including Team Foundation Server 2010.

With this announcement we unveiled the new product line-up:

• Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN. The comprehensive suite of application life-cycle management tools for software teams to help ensure quality results from design to deployment
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Premium with MSDN. A complete toolset to help developers deliver scalable, high-quality applications
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Professional with MSDN. The essential tool for basic development tasks to assist developers in implementing their ideas easily
• Microsoft Visual Studio Test Elements with MSDN. The primary tool for manual and generalist testers who need to define and manage test cases, execute test runs and file bugs.
• Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010. The center of gravity for team development, enabling version control, work items tracking, build automation, and reporting.
• Microsoft Visual Studio Team Lab Management 2010. The tools to support virtual labs and enable better developer and tester collaboration when paired with other Visual Studio tools.

What happened to "Team System" you ask? We realized that by creating two Visual Studio brands - Visual Studio and Visual Studio Team System - we had created confusion over the difference between the two products. Visual Studio had been positioned and the basic tool for individual developers and Visual Studio Team System was positioned as the set of tools for development teams engaged in more formalized development with a defined process.

It turns out that nearly all professional developers work in teams small and large, and some use Visual Studio Professional and some use Visual Studio Team System. The consolidation of these two brands united the Visual Studio family as the best tools for development on the Windows platform. Period.

To support both teams using Visual Studio as an ALM solution and individuals currently using Visual SourceSafe and Subversion who would like to use Team Foundation Server we have decided to include Team Foundation Server 2010 in MSDN subscriptions that come with Visual Studio 2010 Professional, Premium and Ultimate as well as Test Elements. This is a full version of Team Foundation Server 2010 and is licensed for unlimited development and test use and one production deployment. We are also including a single CAL.

For teams who want to use Team Foundation Server but who don't have an MSDN subscription, we are changing the retail pricing of Team Foundation Server from around $3,000 USD to around $500 USD. The retail version will come with a EULA exception allowing up to five (5) named users without CALs. More users can be added by buying CALs for them.

We announced today that Visual Studio 2010 will launch on March 22, 2010, and we announced The Ultimate Offer. On March 22, 2010 all customers with an active MSDN Premium subscription will be transitioned up to the next product up the stack.

• Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Editions and Team Suite with MSDN Premium will transition up to Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN.
• Visual Studio Professional 2008 with MSDN Premium will transition up to Visual Studio 2010 Premium with MSDN.
• Visual Studio Professional 2008 with MSDN Professional will transition to Visual Studio 2010 Professional with MSDN.

Here is a video of my boss, Dave Mendlen, discussing all of today's announcements:

More to come....

D7