Go (large, well-funded) Team!

Microsoft recently announced the pricing of the new Team System product, which will replace Visual Source Safe for version control and project management. The price has shocked many development shops who now realize that it is currently intended for very large teams. In addition, Microsoft dramatically changed the MSDN product, reducing the flexibility and greatly increasing the price for most customers.

Read this great post for a thorough overview and links to other commentary [via Scoble].

We no longer have a stake in .NET development, but I have to admit that this makes me feel even better about our decision. These actions confirm that Microsoft is focused on enterprise-level, large team, large corporation development rather than small web teams and start-ups. Obviously, the enterprises is where the money is and they would be foolish to ignore the market, but will the small teams still consider Microsoft when they're no longer small?

Comments

[shua]

"...will the small teams still consider Microsoft when they're no longer small?"

I'd say no. At least not in the ever-changing business environment we have now. Of course, that's dependent on someone providing not-quite-enterprise-level solutions and then being able to grow as a provider as your customers grow.

If a small team can get locked in with a project management (or any other kind of) company that WANTS to work with them and caters to the small team, and that company can grow with that team... why move on to a Microsoft platform which is 1.) unknown and 2.) hasn't bent over backwards to get their business?

[Jon]

Once again Microsoft alienates 3/4 of the market.

I have been developing sites (as a hobby) for just over 3 years now and I would never think of using MS products to do so ever again. Since I have switched to LAMP (using MySQL), development has been easier, quicker and so much cheaper!

[phil crissman]

"Will the small teams still consider Microsoft when they're no longer small?"

The implied answer is "probably not," and I'd have to say I agree. For one thing, most teams will probably want some sort of version control long before these Microsoft products are in their price range, so they would probably wind up using CVS or subversion... Once your team knows how to use one of those and is used to it, I'm not sure why you would bother to switch.

Another thought is that in order to actually grow large enough to afford these "Enterprise" products, the team would have to be pretty darn skilled at whatever languages/platforms/frameworks that they are currently using. So the only incentive to switch to an expensive Microsoft environment would have to be some sort of massive gains in efficiency or rapid application development, or added scalability. I can't see how Microsoft's products could offer large enough advantages to warrant the price tag, but... I also don't work in that large of a team, so there *could* be things I am not considering.

Anyways, that's my really long way of saying, good point. :-)

[Noel Weichbrodt]

So, what's in your tool chest now as replacements? Are you going FOSS all the way, or will you stick with commercial apps from established vendors?

I'm exploring alternatives at my blog: http://barelylegalsubstance.chattablogs.com/archives/022442.html