Microsoft's Teamprise Acquisition Takes Visual Studio Cross-Platform

Microsoft has announced that it will purchase the Teamprise technology and other Teamprise-related assets from SourceGear to deliver cross-platform support for Microsoft’s Visual Studio tool set.

Microsoft announced the news on Nov. 9 in conjunction with the TechEd Europe 2009 conference, which runs Nov. 9-13 in Berlin.

Teamprise enables developers using the Eclipse integrated development environment (IDE) or operating on multiple operating systems, including Unix, Linux and Mac OS X, to build applications with Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server.

“We know our customers face daily challenges with management, collaboration and development in heterogeneous environments,” said S. “Soma” Somasegar, senior vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft. “The industry must take steps to make interoperability a stronger business asset for our customers. With the acquisition of the Teamprise assets, we’re taking a step forward on this journey, providing customers with a viable cross-platform development solution that will help produce business results more quickly.”

“With this acquisition we just built a bridge to Java developers," said Dave Mendlen, senior director of developer marketing at Microsoft, in an interview with eWEEK.

Mendlen said development organizations will benefit from increased integration in heterogeneous environments, as well as reduced time and complexity associated with application development tasks. Functionality from the Teamprise Client Suite will be integrated into the Visual Studio product line beginning with Visual Studio 2010.

That integration is the key to this acquisition, as Microsoft and SourceGear have worked closely together to offer enterprise developers a solution that includes Teamprise technology.

“With this acquisition, developers and customers now have the assurance that there is a major organization behind the Teamprise technology and its future development,” Mendlen said.

Application development in heterogeneous environments often requires use of multiple, disconnected tool sets and skills for each platform, additional custom work to foster compatibility, and extra time to ensure collaboration, Microsoft officials said.

Meanwhile, Microsoft’s Team Foundation Server (TFS), in combination with the Teamprise Client Suite technologies, will enable developers to use a single tool to overcome core development challenges, including version control, work-item tracking, build management, process guidance and business intelligence, regardless of the core platform in use, said Doug Seven, senior product manager for Microsoft’s Visual Studio.

“Heterogeneous development environments are a reality,” Seven said. “Java developers using Eclipse and .NET developers using Visual Studio need to be able to collaborate.”

The Teamprise Client Suite includes:

• Teamprise Plug-in for Eclipse. The Teamprise Plug-in for Eclipse allows developers to perform all of their source control, bug tracking, build and reporting operations from within Eclipse and Eclipse-based IDEs, such as Rational Application Developer, JBoss, BEA Workshop and Adobe Flex Builder.

• Teamprise Explorer. Teamprise Explorer combines all of the functionality available to Eclipse developers using the Teamprise Plug-in into a stand-alone, cross-platform GUI application that is perfect for team members working outside of an IDE, such as graphic designers, quality assurance testers and project managers.

• Teamprise Command-Line Client. The Teamprise Command-Line Client provides a cross-platform, nongraphical interface to Microsoft Team Foundation Server, making it perfect for scripting and build scenarios or for developers who prefer a command-line interface.

“For nearly four years, we have made it our mission to deliver strong, best-of-breed tools to our customers for cross-platform development,” said Corey Steffen, general manager of the Teamprise division of SourceGear. “By joining forces with Microsoft, we see an opportunity to further our mission—and customers’ benefits—by fostering joint innovation between Teamprise solutions and Microsoft Team Foundation Server.”

The Teamprise technology will be available in the Visual Studio 2010 wave. Mendlen said the technology will ship either at the time of the general availability of Visual Studio 2010 or some time shortly after. Visual Studio 2010 is expected to ship in March 2010.

Customers will be able to jointly purchase the Teamprise Client Suite technology, updated to work with Team Foundation Server 2010, and one Team Foundation Server client access license. Customers with Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN also will receive the Teamprise Client Suite technology as part of their original subscription purchase. SourceGear will continue to provide support for Teamprise products and sell its latest release of the Teamprise Client Suite until the Microsoft solution becomes available. More information about Microsoft and its interoperability efforts for developers is available at www.microsoft.com/interop.

Microsoft did not disclose terms of the acquisition, and Teamprise will maintain all current operations until regulatory approval, Microsoft officials said.