Disclaimer: I do not work for Microsoft, but I am a Microsoft MVP. The following is all derived from public information, and any inferences or extrapolations are entirely the work of my imagination, and is not something that I know that Microsoft is working on. If I knew Microsoft was working on things like this, it would be covered under my non-disclosure agreement, and you wouldn’t be reading about it here. If you like (or hate) these ideas, let Microsoft know about it.
I don’t know if you have had a chance to attend one of the Visual Studio 2005 & SQL Server 2005 launch events but at the event Microsoft has been giving away copies of Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 Standard Editions, just for attending the event. Even if you happened to miss the “big” events, you can still attend a “Best Of” event and get your free copies. The Best Of events have been split into separate events, one for SQL Server, another for Visual Studio, and they will be hitting the “smaller” cities. Check the sites for more details, but I hear that all of the best of events have not been announced yet, so even if there isn’t one in your area, you may not be out of luck.
But all of this talk of free copies of Visual Studio and SQL Server got me thinking about what Microsoft is up to by giving things away. Microsoft had previously announced that the Visual Studio Express Editions will be free for one year. IMHO, that makes total sense, get the tools in the hands of the hobbyist and the LAMP developers (who are using open source development tools). But why should they make only the express editions free (especially if Microsoft has been giving away copies of Visual Studio and SQL Server Standard anyway)? By announcing a pricing structure for these products, and then giving them away for a limited time, they are retaining the “right” to charge for the product in the future, which is an old school marketing method of giving consumers a taste of the product, and creating hype (and upping the conversion rate to a new release).
The thing that hit me is that maybe this isn’t just a standard marketing thing, but it looks like Microsoft is hedging their bets against IBM and the Eclipse integrated development environment. I’ve used Eclipse from time to time (depending on my client) and I’ve noticed that over the last couple years it has definitely become a much nicer IDE. It use to be that even things that VS developer took as must haves (like intell-sense and other productivity enhancements) were no where to be found in Eclipse. Eclipse use to be slightly better then POT (plain old texteditor). That’s not the case any more, and the Eclipse Foundation has recently been talking about toppling Visual Studio as the premier development environment. IMHO, that is big news, and I’m sure Microsoft has noticed Eclipse sneaking up behind them.
So, why not offer a version of Visual Studio for free? Well, besides the fact that it would acknowledge that Eclipse is now a contender; there are all those customers that already bought a copy of VS 2005 (either directly or thru the MSDN Universal program). But, Microsoft has never required Studio to be activated (and I don’t think they will start any time soon), which means it has been very easy for someone to install a copy of Studio and not pay for the license. The upside of this is that Microsoft is getting more people to use the product, and (usually) folks that didn’t purchase a copy don’t go looking to Microsoft for support (which keeps down Microsoft’s cost for providing support).
Eventually I can see a shift in the way the base Visual Studio is positioned, especially with the emergence of Team System. It feels like Visual Studio is migrating towards more of a base IDE framework, and Microsoft will sell add-ins instead of the selling various Editions (similar to Eclipse design). It would help eliminate the whole “which edition should I buy” problem which seems to be plaguing developers. Instead a developer would get the base IDE for free, and could buy the add-ins a la carte (buy only what they need at the current time). This isn’t something that I know, just something that feels pretty reasonable. I don’t really see Microsoft making any pricing structure changes for VS 2005, but I’d really be surprise if a new structure was not in effect for the next release (rumored to be schedule for 2007, but things are always in flux). The current Editions licensing scheme is just too complicated to be continued. For now though, you can attend one of the kick off events (in their various forms) and get a copy of VS 2005 Standard for free.
Fitting the VS as a base IDE framework concept would even give Microsoft the opportunity to fix the MSDN Universal fiasco. I’ve even been totally confused on exactly what the new MSDN Universal options are, and have to go back to the site every time I need to figure out what a subscription level a client should buy. Most people look at the top subscription level and get sticker shock when the see the $10000 price tag, not realizing that the new stuff in the MSDN Universal Team Suite isn’t meant for the single developer or the small development shop. Selling these items as add-ins and not tied directly to which edition of Visual Studio you have installed would make things a lot easier. Case in point, I have a MSDN Universal subscription thru the MVP program. Visual Studio for Architects always contained all “add-ins” available for that release of Studio, so I originally installed Team Edition for Software Architects. But, that version is now just for architects, and architect don’t code (it’s a known fact, correct?), so it does not have the testing tools that is in both the Developer and Tester editions. I couldn’t just install the testing tools. I had to totally uninstall the architect version, and re-install Studio, but this time using the Team Suite edition (which contains all the tools). Definitely not the most user friendly way to “just add a couple tools”, and the product name is totally misleading.
So we can see that Microsoft definitely has a way to go with their marketing strategy of Visual Studio. Hopefully there is some stuff in the post that they can take and use to develop a better strategy for the next time around, because I’m still a big VS fan, and have no desire to use Eclipse as my full time IDE (but some competition for Visual Studio, which will help influence them to keep releasing better products, is a good thing, IMHO).