So, I get the big-bad email today from MSDN telling me that VS2005 will be coming along, and that I'll need to transition my MSDN Universal Account to one of the Role-Based Team Edition/Premium Subscriptions.
If you've been under a rock, that means that the MSDN Universal Subscription is no longer your ticket to 'just about everything MS has under the sun for one big gob of money' (because Team Suite more or less takes that spot, and will cost considerably more to buy - but I think it's going to be worth it for enterprise customers, once TFS matures enough). Of course, I'm still a bit grumpy, that as a one-man-shop that I can't somehow get all 3 of the role-based editions of VS 2005 without spending a small fortune. It's my ONLY gripe with the changes they're making.
Well. *wait for it... * There is one other thing that bugs. And it's just a question of execution. My MSDN subscription cost over $2k, so making the transition to a new 'role based version' isn't something that I'll want to SCREW up on. i.e. I'm going to want to make sure that I select the best version for me (as a one-man-shop) - meaning that I'll want to compare features, etc. The link that MS sends me to in the email sends me here.
If you go look at that, you'll see that it doesn't mention bupkiss about what each version contains, just that the Software Developers Subscription comes with Visual Studio for DEVELOPERS, the Architectural Subscriptions comes with ... VS 2005 for Architects, and you can guess the details on the Software Testers' subscription.
I guess the problem stems from the fact that the Visual Studio Team BUILDS VS, and the MSDN people sell it, etc. Meaning that there's a disconnect. The bigger problem Hunt and peck on the MSDN site, and you won't find an overview of the differences. I had to go back and pull an image out of a slide deck that showed the differences (graphically, and without much explanation other than the obvious).
I've included that image here for both of my readers.
Though I don't know if either of them will be worried about picking the right MSDN Subscription. (I wonder what is the bigger waste of time, writing blog posts that nobody reads, or scanning blog posts that you encounter to see if you'll read it or not... )
Subscriber #1 thanks you. I now know which one to choose ;)
Posted by: Chris Frazier | September 29, 2005 at 02:11 PM
LOL! I feel your pain. In fact, subscriber #2 recently worried about this as well, and I agree that they've done a lousy job of differentiating between them, and explaining each offers. It was only after I spent a good bit of time talking to Chris Menegay (an MS RD, and the local Team System guru) and Brian Moore (the local MS developer evangelist) after a presentation that they gave to our .Net UG on Team System, and playing with the CTP builds of VS Pro and VSTS-Suite that I came to the conclusion that that VSTS-Developers was going to be the edition that hit my sweet spot. I love that chart though...Brian Moore had it as a slide in his presentation, but I hadn't been able to find it on the web. Now I know where to point other lost souls. :-)
Posted by: Xander Sherry | September 30, 2005 at 12:01 AM
We do have a little more info available than the page you mention. Try this link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/howtobuy/vs2005/editions/team/compare/
Posted by: Matt Lusher (MSDN) | October 06, 2005 at 03:40 PM
Matt, Score. That's exactly what I was looking for. Now you'll tell me that the link for that is somewhere right off the page I was looking at right?
Posted by: Michael K. Campbell | October 06, 2005 at 03:43 PM