Buying Visual Studio 2005

If you're a software developer working with .NET, the odds are good that you're using Visual Studio to compile your applications. There are other ways to create .NET applications—you can use Notepad and the free compilers from the .NET Framework SDK, or alternative IDEs such as SharpDevelop or X-Develop—but Visual Studio has the lion's share of the market.

Microsoft is planning to release the next version of Visual Studio, Visual Studio 2005, on November 11, 2005. The new version will have been through an 18-month beta process at that point, and includes hundreds of changes and new features. Some of the significant upgrades include:

• Better customization and easy import and export of customized settings
• Support for the latest language features such as generics, anonymous methods, and partial types
• Code refactoring tools
• Code snippet expansions
• Improved debugger support for examining complex objects
• Built-in diagnostics for common exceptions

When you combine these Visual Studio improvements with changes in other parts of .NET (such as new controls for Windows applications, master pages and themes for ASP.NET applications, improved data binding, and faster XML manipulation), we think that most developers will find Visual Studio 2005 to be a "must-have" upgrade. But upgrading isn't as simple as going down to the corner store and throwing the new box into your shopping cart next to the milk and cookies. Microsoft has created a vast array of options for purchasing Visual Studio and the associated MSDN subscriptions. To make the most of your software dollars, it's important to understand these options. That's why we wrote this Guide.

Understanding Visual Studio Team System

With the release of Visual Studio Team System, Microsoft is pushing Visual Studio into the application lifecycle management market, an area that it has traditionally left to other vendors. As the name implies, Team System includes several different components:

• Three role-based editions of Visual Studio 2005, one each for testers, developers, and architects. These editions contain special tools designed to help users in those particular roles
• A customizable process framework that is designed to manage the entire software development lifecycle, from requirements gathering through acceptance testing
• Work-item tracking and other collaborative tools to help project managers keep tabs on the progress of software projects across teams of all sizes
• A new enterprise-grade source code control and asset management system
• A build server to automatically compile new versions of your software
• A SharePoint-based team Web site that makes the project status and documentation easily available to the entire team

To implement Visual Studio Team System, you'll need to set up a copy of Team Foundation Server (the central server that stores source code and work items). You'll also need one of the Team editions of Visual Studio for each of your architects, developers, and testers.

Alternatively, you can purchase Team Foundation Server Client Access Licenses (CALs) for users of Visual Studio 2005 Standard Edition or Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition to enable those users to participate in the collaborative development process. We'll discuss all of these components in more detail later in this Guide.

Committing to Team System represents a substantial investment for any development organization. You should expect to pay between five and ten thousand dollars per user by the time you take software and training costs into account.

MSDN Subscription Transition Plan

The lineup of MSDN subscription offerings is changing substantially with the release of Visual Studio 2005. Later in this Guide, we'll explain exactly what's included in the new subscription levels and review their pricing. Microsoft has also announced special transition privileges for current MSDN subscribers. The transition options depend on your current subscription level. In all cases, the subscription must be active when Visual Studio 2005 is released (that is, on November 7, 2005):

• MSDN Library Subscriptions remain unchanged
• MSDN Operating Systems Subscriptions remain unchanged
• MSDN Professional Subscriptions automatically upgrade at no cost to Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition with MSDN Professional Subscriptions.
• MSDN Enterprise Subscriptions automatically upgrade at no cost to Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Software Developers with MSDN Premium Subscription.
• MSDN Universal Subscriptions are entitled to upgrade at no cost to any one of the three role-based Team Edition subscriptions: Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Software Testers with MSDN Premium Subscription, Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Software Developers with MSDN Premium Subscription, or Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Software Architects with MSDN Premium Subscription. Alternatively, MSDN Universal subscribers may pay an additional $2,299 one-time fee to upgrade to Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite with MSDN Premium Subscription.

These transition options do not apply to MSDN licenses obtained through special programs such as Partner Programs or the MSDN Academic Alliance. For those programs, you'll need to wait for information from the respective program management to find out the transition plans. As of July 2005, Microsoft has not yet released any information on transition plans for these special programs.

If you're an existing MSDN subscriber and you want to take advantage of this transition pricing, it is critically important that you do not let your subscription lapse before the release of Visual Studio 2005. The special pricing is available only to those with active subscriptions in November 2005. If you let your subscription lapse before that, even a few weeks earlier, you'll pay the (substantially higher) new subscription prices when you sign up for a new subscription.

Which Role is Right For You?

You've probably noticed that MSDN Universal subscribers have to choose between three different products for their free upgrade:

• Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Software Architects with MSDN Premium Subscription
• Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Software Developers with MSDN Premium Subscription
• Visual Studio 2005 Team Edition for Software Testers with MSDN Premium Subscription

Each of these is the same basic product (they can all be used to create applications based on C#, Visual Basic, C++, or Visual J#), but they include different sets of additional tools. The Architect's Edition includes tools that will help you design the architecture for distributed products. The Developer's Edition includes tools that help verify the correctness of code and ensure its best possible performance, as well as unit-testing tools. The Tester's Edition includes tools for authoring and executing large-scale load tests.

Almost all developers should choose the Developer's Edition. If your day-to-day work is writing code, this is the package for you. The other two editions lack the tools that will help directly improve your code quality, so you shouldn't consider them unless you're in the specific roles that they target. If your job involves a substantial amount of large-scale design, especially of distributed or service-oriented architectures, then the Architect's Edition will be a better fit for you. If your job is to test software, especially Web software, then the Tester's Edition is the one you want. If you're unsure, get the Developer's Edition, because it has the broadest spectrum of tools. If your job crosses all of these disciplines on a regular basis, you should consider upgrading to the full Team Suite package, although this will cost you a substantial amount of extra money.

Types of Pricing

You'll find a number of different pricing terms in use when reading about the options for purchasing Visual Studio 2005 and MSDN. Here's a quick summary of the terms you may run across:

Retail pricing

Also called Estimated Retail Price or ERP, the list price for a single copy bought off the shelf at a retail store. You should view this as the maximum price that you would ever pay for a software product, if you were stranded in a small town and desperate to buy a copy from the one computer store in town before it closed so that you could use it that day. You can almost always get a better deal than paying ERP, but it makes a useful yardstick for comparison.

Upgrade pricing

The price you pay to upgrade from a different product to this product. Upgrade pricing usually applies in two different situations: version upgrades, such as upgrading from Visual Studio .NET 2003 Professional to Visual Studio 2005 Professional, and competitive upgrades, such as upgrading from Borland C++ Builder to Visual Studio 2005. Microsoft products normally carry the same price for both version and competitive upgrades.

Renewal pricing

Renewal pricing applies to Microsoft's subscription-based offerings such as MSDN, where the second and succeeding years are often less expensive than the first year. With MSDN in particular, you can switch versions (within some limits) and still get renewal pricing. For example, if you have a subscription at the MSDN Operating Systems level, you can renew at the Visual Studio Professional with MSDN Professional level the following year at the renewal price rather than the full price.

Academic pricing

Students and faculty at accredited academic institutions qualify for deeply discounted software prices. These prices are normally only legitimately available through student bookstores and similar educational outlets.

Volume pricing

If you're buying a substantial number of licenses (five or more licenses in the case of Microsoft products), you may qualify for discounted volume pricing. You'll learn more about Microsoft's volume licensing programs later in this Guide.

License Terms

One thing to keep in mind as you compare prices for the different ways to purchase Visual Studio is that not all licenses are the same. If you purchase a license for Visual Studio 2005 itself (for example, by ordering a copy from your favorite reseller, or by purchasing a copy via the Microsoft Open License Program), then you own the program. You can use it for as long as you like. But if you purchase a license via a subscription-based program such as MSDN, your license expires when your subscription does. At the end of a year, or two years (depending on whether you bought your MSDN subscription via retail or through a volume licensing program) you must either pay for a subscription renewal or uninstall the software.

Buying From Resellers

One way to save money on packaged software products is to buy from a software reseller. By purchasing in bulk, a reseller can sell to you at a cost below the ERP and still make a profit. Microsoft makes almost all of its products available through resellers. This applies not just to shrink-wrapped boxed products such as Visual Studio 2005, but to MSDN subscriptions and even to volume licenses such as those sold under the Microsoft Open License Program. If you shop around and get price quotes from multiple resellers, you can often lower your software purchasing costs enough to make the effort worthwhile.

Software Piracy

If you shop around, you'll also find prices for Visual Studio that seem too good to be true. These prices often turn up on online auction sites or in direct e-mail campaigns, and may be represented as academic or OEM (original equipment manufacturer) pricing. Sadly, if the pricing is too good to be true, it almost certainly means one thing: the product is pirated. If you buy pirated software, you'll find that Microsoft won't support it, and you won't get access to any subscription or online components of the product.

Software piracy is so rampant that Microsoft has created an entire Web site to help consumers recognize and avoid pirated software products. Microsoft products also have anti-piracy features built in. The How To Tell site will help you determine whether a particular copy of a product is legitimate. Retail copies of Visual Studio, for example, have a Certificate of Authenticity on the box and a hologram on the CD. The bottom line, though, is simple: if a deal seems suspiciously low-priced, avoid it.