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Deal or No Deal on New VS2010 Pricing

Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 and .NET 4 Beta 2 are generally available on Wednesday. MSDN subscribers got access to the downloads on Monday, Oct. 19. With the latest release comes news from Microsoft about a simplified packaging scheme for VS2010, updates to MSDN, and promotions to facilitate upgrades at the March 22, 2010 launch.

The simplified SKU lineup is down to four: Visual Studio 2010 Professional with or without MSDN, Visual Studio 2010 Premium with MSDN, and Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN.

This should be welcome news for developers--and we've heard this complaint from just about everybody—it was unclear which functionality was in which SKU. The "gotchas" after people downloaded or licensed the wrong versions, weren't fun. Microsoft has heard your pleas even though some questions linger.

Visual Studio Standard edition is no longer, starting with VS2010. Does this mean that the functionality in the Express tools will be expanded? That would be a deal, especially if these free tools supported Windows Mobile and SharePoint development. For now VS2010 beta 2 does not support smart device development. The SharePoint 2010 Designer will be free to licensed SharePoint users.

If VS2008 Standard users need to upgrade to the VS2010 Professional edition, which is $799 without MSDN, roughly $500 more, that's a steep price increase. Under the new scheme, Professional pricing remains the same at $1,199 with MSDN for new licenses and $799 with MSDN for renewals.

Visual Studio 2010 Team System is getting repackaged as a Premium offer, which rolls up most of the functionality in the former Team Suite editions -- Developer, Database, Test and Architect -- into a single SKU, which is $5,469 for new licenses and $2,299 for renewals. The new Premium package with MSDN is comparable to the suggested pricing of a single Visual Studio 2008 Team Suite edition, according to Microsoft. That sounds like a deal.

Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate Edition is the "comprehensive ALM suite," formerly Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Suite with MSDN Premium, which consists of multiple developer licenses and Team Foundation Server.

The Ultimate Edition pricing, which is $11,924 new and $3,841 for renewals, is an increase of 9 percent over VSTS 2008, says Dave Mendlen, senior director of developer marketing at Microsoft. "We did that because we've added a collection of deep architectural tools that transfer your architecture from whiteboard to living assets," he explains. The Ultimate Edition also offers new tools for team testing and an integrated development environment. "In effect, what we are saying is, 'there is a tremendous amount of research and development that has gone into this particular box so we've made a slight price increase."

The good news is that Team Foundation Server 2010, upon release, is included in all versions of Visual Studio 2010, according to a blog post by S. "Soma" Somasegar, senior vice president of the Developer Division:

"For small teams that need only core development features such as source control, bug tracking, and build automation, TFS Basic offers a simple, streamlined install and runs on server or client machines. Test Elements users will notice a more intuitive and responsive user interface."

Finally, MSDN Premium subscribers with licenses for Visual Studio Professional or Team Suite SKUs prior to March 22, 2010 can step up to a higher level of Visual Studio at the time of the VS 2010 launch for their current rate as part of the Ultimate Offer promotion. When the MSDN contract expires, developers can decide if they want to continue to use the higher end SKU and pay the higher price.

"What this means is that customers will get a lot more software than what they are paying for at the time of our launch," says Mendlen.

Microsoft may be packing more into offerings at the same price, but upgrading development environments every three years isn't cheap or easy, despite the great tools. The company offers DreamSpark, BizSpark and WebSpark programs to help qualified students, startups and Web developers get access to their tools and platforms. What more can they do?

"I think that there should be just one version of Visual Studio, it includes everything, and it should be $99, free for students," writes Steve Forte, chief strategy officer at Telerik, in an email. "This would get more installs for sure."

What's your take on the new VS2010 packaging and pricing scheme? Deal or no deal? Express your thoughts below or drop me a line at krichards@reddevnews.com

Posted by Kathleen Richards on 10/20/2009 at 4:48 PM


Reader Comments:

Mon, Mar 28, 2011 Jeff Alabama

VS2010 is too expensive for me. I'm out, and the other four developers on my team are as well.

Mon, Mar 14, 2011 Dedrik USA

I would say that the minimum VS 2010 version that you need to be able to develop, test and debug applications the way it’s meant to be done is the Premium edition. But at almost $6000 for the edition you have got to be kidding me. Yes, the Premium version has a lot other software on it but I don’t want it and yet I can’t get that edition without the MSDN subscription. Sorry I am out, for HTML apps I have already moved to Java / Eclipse. I have a little programming business on the side and I can’t afford this prices.

Fri, Feb 11, 2011 Robert USA

I for one downloaded my Full working version of Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate from the Pirate Bay 3 days after it's release and I absolutely love it! I own a small computer company and installed it on all 37 of my computers and gave all my employees a copy. So, Thanks Microsoft for the wonderful software but $12,000 is WAY too much to pay.

Thu, Jul 8, 2010

I also think that Microsoft overprices its products. Just consider the substantial differences between VS 2008 SP1 and VS 2010. They are almost non-existent. And I cannot understand why Microsoft does not integrate some Native RAD Development tools into Visual Studio. I think it is high time MS realised the importance of creating inexpensive rapid application development tools, which, ideally, would create standalone, small and fast applications. Microsoft has to support those who are new to Windows Development by releasing such tools. It's ludicrous, after all, having to write hundreds of lines of C++ code just to create a notepad application! Time is money!

Thu, Jun 17, 2010

Why is the upgrade to VS2010 Professional from VS2008 Standard less expensive than from VS2008 Pro. I don't get it. Are you getting the same version of VS2010 Pro with each upgrade?

Wed, May 26, 2010 William UK

- Upgrade from VS2005/2008 Standard Users to VS2010 Professional £269.99
- Upgrade from VS2005/2008 Professional to VS2010 Professional £484.99

That says it all. They want to try to lock more developers into VS and .NET and then screw them for upgrades!

There are many sole developers out there, and many small businesses who develop software for their business in house, and these prices for VS and upgrades are absurd.

Tue, May 18, 2010 Adrian Gouder Malta

My opinion,.. VS2010 Ultimate is very expensive for all but the most intense developers... companies that are willing to invest in a more orderly way of doing things - is everyone like that, should they be?. Maybe not at that price. Pity, most software engineers like myself stand to benefit from learning 'about' such features, and possibilities.. but the price is prohibitive. And why do I have to buy MSDN.... can't I play around and restructure on my own. Let's face it, for us these are not just work tools, they're toys we might enjoy and eventually adopt. MS are making our toys too expensive to play with.

Tue, Apr 13, 2010 Fred East Haven, CT

I have been programing in a version of VB since the mid 90's. VB 6 has been taking care of my company's needs for years and in 2009 a project finally called for more than what VB 6 could offer. I was not happy with 2003, 2005 was a nice upgrade, but I finally bought Visual Studio 2008 Standard. I had bought VB. Net 2003 and it's collected dust... 2008 let me buy an entire suite at a reasonable price. VS 2010 is doing the same thing that Borland dis with Delphi - strand those of us who are a bit more than hobbiests. So I will stay with 2008 and hope that MS gets the idea in 2012 or 2015..... Or maybe my company may migrate to Linux by then.... our backbone is AIX, so Microsoft is not on top of the Ivory Tower here.

Wed, Feb 10, 2010 Rajeev

Price should have bee much lesser for at least professional editions so that Individual user can afford that. I think, for wider acceptability microsoft should rethink about pricing. I have seen Eastern Economy Edition for books. Microsoft should think in the same way for Softwares as well.

Wed, Jan 27, 2010

Take a look at http://thankyoumicrosoft.com/wordpress/?p=3

Sat, Nov 7, 2009 Atlanta, GA

I tend to agree with the assessment that MS is increasingly forgetting about the area that used to be one of their strongest targets -- the small and medium shops. While programs such as Bizspark help the small startup by providing them the tools they need, mid-sized and established companies struggle to deal with the ever-increasing price for their tools. Enterprises have the quantity advantage -- they can negoatiate a better pricing due to the large volume of licenses. This means that the mid-size shops are the ones suffering the hit of the price hikes. The choice they face -- subset of the tools at an affordable rate or the full set of necessary tools at the same price point as hiring an overseas developer (who likely has a copy of those tools) -- is not particularly attractive. This is definitely not the same choice we saw in the 90's where a mid-size shop could rely on a fair price for the Enterprise level toolset. I would venture a guess that this leads more than a few shops (especially those that don't qualify for a *spark program ... or they pass the "3 years" limit) to give up on the Microsoft platforms and move to other stacks to control costs. In an economy like ours, it's tough to justify $10k of tools to a manager when they are aware of tools like Eclipse being free. Far too many of us ended up with Standard edition (or, in best cases, Pro) because you cannot convince a non-developer that the extra money is justified. When they take that request into the board room to discuss expenses and budgets, it's a simple question of numbers. "Increased productivity" and "faster debugging", are not quantifiable. We've all heard it -- "I can budget extra days of work, but upgrading the tools shows up on the expenses and will never get approved". Hopefully, they will recognize that the majority of their developers are in the mid-markets and price the tools accordingly.

Mon, Nov 2, 2009

There are some programs where you can enroll and probably get access cheaper in some cases. I.e. the partner program. However, some weeks ago I actually replied in a partner survey when asked what Microsoft could do better. I told them to "get rid of product management" in the sense that they seem to have achieve a critical mass where too many product managers influence product quality while too few domain specialist and technical developers influence product quality. I.e. product quality may also be pricing or "artifical" product packaging making the product quality a lesser thing and bad for 3rd party development. Anyway Microsoft product management reminds me of insane IBM days almost bringing the company down. Product management will eventually kill a big part of Microsoft if they don't fix it ("have product management help packing the products as intended and not repackaging the products to be of less value than competitors"). In addition product management is working hard to bring down the long standing relationship between the broad application developers and Microsoft. When the relationship have been teared down Microsoft will have become IBM and .NET like HPS and for some time the suits will be still be interested. However, market is defined by broad. Anyway, Microsoft's business folks like product managers may have started to think that industrialized IT does not need developers and just business domain specialist as programmers. However, the road is still long to automation, robots, global optimization and semantics. It's just another point that product managers only knows how to realize value in the short term however lacks vision and the ability to work strategically within a long term perspective. May be I will buy VS this time - but quality of VS and .NET is not that good - and the increased pricing support taking a stand on whether to go Java or .NET. But you can go and use SP 2010 for HCI and then use J2EE and WS if you need to create web services. Java is also more flexible in many ways, better configuration for variability than .NET and TDD is well supported and other software concepts more well supported than in .NET too. The major point for .NET is production value and it of course goes down with increased pricing - also setting the position of Microsoft product management to may be push the price as far as they can with respect to market share. So regarding Microsoft product management I can only say welcome back IBM.

Wed, Oct 28, 2009 SF

I paid less than $200 for VS2005 Standard (for the add ons) and am/was looking forward to upgrading ... but not if the pricing isn't in line with what I paid for VS2005

Wed, Oct 28, 2009 Ed Eaglehouse Ohio

No deal. Visual Studio was already too expensive. Maybe Microsoft intends to support career development by driving existing developers back to school so they can buy the affordable Academic Version.

Wed, Oct 28, 2009 jimdel

I'm just a hobbyist. The price for Standard was just right for me. The express versions don't work for me because I like to use Add-ons. The "special promotions" for standard users doesn't cut it. I want to know NOW what those deals would be. So I can know if I should start looking for an Open Source solution.

Wed, Oct 28, 2009 James

As a professional developer my company buys the team studio edition of visual studio, but I have never had reason to use all the "team" features because the features assume you buy into Microsoft’s and academe’s programming paradigm. In theory the tools are useful; in practice have you ever let a certified expert use an architectural tool or design a database? You toss all their code, fire their ass because they do not know the basics... I will just continue to use the professional edition. Thanks.

Wed, Oct 28, 2009 Kokuryu Tenchi South Florida

Apple provides their develoepr's tools for free. What you can pay for is the equivalent of Microsoft's MSDN, which is the ADC - Apple Developer Connection, which has Free, $99 Student, $199 monthly technical mailings, $499 "Select" membership meant for technicians and other professionals, and the $3499 "Premiere" membership - which gives you a ticket to their yearly tech conference, pre-release software, and much more. And, to boot, if you are an ADC paying member, you get DISCOUNTS on Apple hardware! You cant beat this!

Wed, Oct 28, 2009

I think a big misconception here is that the Premium and Ultimate tools are for basic developers just writing code who need nothing else. Premium and Ultimate contain extremely powerful analysis, testing, and architecture tools. Add TFS (included with MSDN now) and you also have requirements management, bug-tracking, reporting, and more. And last I checked, those types of tools, if purchased from a competitor (Mercury/HP/IBM,etc) cost EXPONENTIALLY more and don't integrate nicely. And they are dated and cobbled together from the different companies they had bought over the years. So make sure you're comparing apples to apples before balking at the price. I've been in the software business since '99 and am amazed how many people still think real application development tools should be cheap or free. Don't you design your applications up front? Gather requirements? Track defects and change requests? How much time and money do YOU waste chasing down bugs, jamming last minute changes in because a requirement got missed, or troubleshooting broken builds because you don't have proper tools? As a consultant, I wasted hours every week on this kind of BS, which translated to hundreds of dollars *a week*. If I'd had those kindas of tools, I'd have wasted far less of my time, let alone the buildmaster's, the QA department's, etc... Penny-wise, pound foolish I say.

Wed, Oct 28, 2009 Dave H England

I see the "Developers, developers, developers." philosophy has gone then! For years M$ has created jobs by forcing people to train and learn their systems, but they've go too far. "Obfuscaters, obfuscaters, obfuscaters"

Wed, Oct 28, 2009 doc

$11,924? You gotta be kidding! Good luck with that one. Endless bugs, patches, security problems? I'm done. Our business is going another direction. We've put up with enough churn and design de jour. I can't afford to stay with MS anymore.

Wed, Oct 28, 2009 BrianS Houston

Microsoft is a large company struggling to maintain its position as a (the?) premiere provider of development systems. They certainly have the right to charge what they want, but they are running into the curve of diminishing returns now. It seems to me that they need to simplify their pricing structure more. VS2010 (without TFS), and VS2010 with TFS. Pricepoints? Say, $500 without, $1500 with TFS per seat. Still within reach of developers. If this doesn't pay for VS2010 costs, then perhaps MS need to simplify their processes and development teams as well.

Wed, Oct 28, 2009 80's Rocker

Until Telerik sells their whole enterprise control packages for $99.00, Steve Forte commenting on MS pricing has not weight. IMO for 1300 you get a lot more buying VS, compared to what you get for the Telerik control suite that cost about the same amount. That is why I never buy any 3rd party controls (Telerik, ComponetOne, Crystal Reports, etc).

Wed, Oct 28, 2009 80's Rocker

The following is such an inaccurate statement. "Develop and deploy apps for iPhone: $100 (w/ a Mac). Develop and deploy apps for Windows Mobile: $1300?!?! " Lets' compare Mac vs MS dev in a real comparison. Mac: 100 (dev tool) 1300-1500 (Mac computer) MS: 1200 (dev tools) 300-500 (Win PC) So if you look at it the difference is price is not that big. Plus, until MAC allows their OS to run in a VM on a windows machine, I consider them a bigger monopoly than MS.

Tue, Oct 27, 2009 Dave Gipson Northern Calif.

As a small shop developer the upgrade costs might be too much. However... the WebSpark program is the perfect solution for small shops like ours. I'm sure Microsoft will ensure I continue to write my products wrapped around theirs.

Tue, Oct 27, 2009 Kirk Bangkok, Thailand

Holy crap, it's getting expensive. I think I'm going to milk my current VS2008 for as long as possible, then try to roll the upgrade cost into a project proposal for client that requires NetFx 4.0. I'm a freelance, independent software developer and architect, and in Asia, I generally charge less (from 30% - 50% less) than I do in the U.S. (the costs of living are 1/3 of what they are back in the states, so it more than evens out) - so the cost of my tools is effectively raised 30% - 50% relative to what I earn with them. Is a non-MSDN upgrade from VS2008 Pro to VS2010 Pro also $799? I really think Microsoft is off-track here: their "WebsiteSpark" program was a great idea (free software for solo devs and small shops), they should have an equivalent for VS2010, maybe a $199 price for companies with less than 10 employees or something. Ultimately, I guess I'll pay either way, but I'm definitely going to delay until I can pass the cost along, or until I absolutely need some feature not in VS2008. Not many things could make the Eclipse/Mono IDE look attractive for developing .Net apps, but this pricing actually does.

Tue, Oct 27, 2009

Microsoft is in a tough (yes, often self-inflicted) position in terms of marketing position. Visual Studio and the .NET framework are powerful, flexible tools. But Microsoft's pricing strategy and target audiences seem to be somewhat bipolar. The free Express editions are great tools for newcomers (and perhaps even adequate for many professional projects). But Microsoft seems to be increasingly orphaning the small and medium shops (e.g., high prices, turning away from VB) in favor of the enterprise. But ironically, though Microsoft has very competitive tools and servers, they were and often continue to be shunned at the enterprise level in favor of Java, Oracle, et al. Businesses and developers are increasingly turning to open source platforms and tools (often chasing low cost, but increasingly benefiting from the open source community support and contributions to the platforms (and a growing range of commercial support), as well as platforms/frameworks well-suited to quick/agile (don't say RAD :-) development. Microsoft has been fairly slow on the uptake with test-driven development, and still feels the need to push their own weird approach. Why doesn't Microsoft offer Subversion support/integration in Visual Studio and SQL Server Management Studio? Even with the new pricing strategy, it's hard to imagine Team Foundation Server gaining significant market share. Which still leaves many shops using the orphaned Visual Source Safe. Mobile? Windows Mobile development isn't very important yet since Microsoft's mobile product line has so little appeal to consumers or mobile carriers. And the carriers (Yeah, you, Verizon) who do offer WM phones generally lock them down so that 3rd-party apps can't be used anyway. Microsoft had better deliver a world-class WM7... fast. And force the carriers to allow/support/encourage custom applications.

Wed, Oct 21, 2009

There is always the Express version for those on the way up (or down). That is priced just right (to kill the market for competitors (if there were any)).

Thank you, thank you very much.

Wed, Oct 21, 2009

This is a huge disappointment to me as I have been looking to enter the Microsoft development world from the Open Source and Mac side - where IDEs and deployment costs are minimum to none compared to this. Develop and deploy apps for iPhone: $100 (w/ a Mac). Develop and deploy apps for Windows Mobile: $1300?!?! Really Microsoft... is this how you hope to continue dominance in the market?

Wed, Oct 21, 2009 Ryan US

I think it is funny that Stephen Forte says that Micrsoft should charge just $99 for Visual Studio when his own company charges 10X that for a web control library, and has the same crazy tiered pricing schemes. Stephen, why don't you just charge $99 for RadControls?

Wed, Oct 21, 2009

I develop productivity apps to help employees do their jobs more efficiently. With the price increases, I do not think our CIO will be able to show an ROI for the upgrade. We do not develop applications for resale, we are just a small company that is trying to stay in business.

Wed, Oct 21, 2009 Mike Heuring Bloomington, IN

The simplified packaging is appreciated. Hefty price increases are tough to deal with. We get our MDSN Premium through an Enterprise agreement for all our MS software. The cost of this agreement is already significant for our regional hosptial.

Tue, Oct 20, 2009 Anthony Costanza

Not all users of Visual Studio are developers. For example I'm involved in engineering and programs are written by one individual (engineer) for in-house use. The programs are primarily functional with no frills. Any Visual Studio beyond Standard would be a waste of money. Sorry, there will be no upgrade.

Tue, Oct 20, 2009 Paul Marangoni Los Angeles

Microsoft is making a big mistake pricing Visual Studio this way. This would have been the perfect opportunity to get more developers on board with .NET and WPF. Instead, they're going to lose more developers to the open source crowd, there will be fewer Windows 7 apps available for consumers, and Windows Mobile will fade away as Apple grows with their iPhone apps. Such a shame. I really like working with Visual Studio, but I think it's time open my horizons perhaps.

Tue, Oct 20, 2009

It's slightly amazing that after all these years MS is still this bogged down in complexity. Their solution to problems born of complexity is to heap more complexity on top, rather than to boil things down to their intrinsic form. So many developers have fled from this trend, with new IDEs that require months of personal empirical research just to find out what the capabilities actually are, what modules or features actually work, how or why they should be implemented, or what convoluted new paradigm is actually likely to save any development time. How many times have you we re-learned the new "best way" to interact with databases? I've lost count. The whole VS package is rapidly turning .NET programmers into a hide-bound society of technicians trapped in an endless cycle of adaptation to new MS approaches, instead of helping them become ever more skillful and productive in design, architecture, and implementation. Worse yet, those "new MS approaches" are characterized by runaway complexity, which results in most of what they learn this year becoming useless by next year. It seems that every year we need a new wizard mini-app just to understand the *packaging* of their development system. I totally agree with Steve Forte -- MS is losing its appeal fast, and won't capture new generations of excited and productive developers by pricing them out of the game with idiotically complicated packaging schemes. Successful marketing is based on making it *easy* for the customer, but that principle seems too simple for the complexity-addicts at MS.

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