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In an effort to simplify the procurement and use of its flagship developer toolset in the enterprise, Microsoft has introduced new pricing and offerings for Visual Studio 2015, which will ship this summer.
Mitra Azizirad, general manager of Developer Platform Marketing and Sales at Microsoft, in an interview with eWEEK, said Microsoft is combining Visual Studio Premium and Visual Studio Ultimate into one single offering called Visual Studio Enterprise with MSDN.
This new SKU “includes all the high-value features you’re already familiar with in Visual Studio Ultimate, along with new innovation that’s coming with the 2015 release,” Azizirad said in a blog post. “So, in addition to Visual Studio Community and Visual Studio Professional with MSDN, our new Visual Studio Enterprise with MSDN rounds out the three primary Visual Studio 2015 offerings.”
Visual Studio Community 2015 is a free, full-featured IDE for creating desktop, mobile and Web applications for Windows, iOS and Android devices and powered by cloud services. It is targeted at small companies, startups, students and open-source software developers creating non-enterprise applications. It features a unified development for client and server applications, cross-platform mobile development, extensibility, advanced coding and productivity features.
Visual Studio Professional 2015 with MSDN is a comprehensive collection of software, tools and services for building professional applications with individual and team productivity. It is targeted at professional developers looking for individual and team productivity for creating non-mission critical applications. It features unrestricted usage, advanced features for individual and team productivity such as CodeLens, core software for dev and test and Team Foundation server, Visual Studio Online basic, and $50 a month in Azure credits, training and support.
Visual Studio Enterprise 2015 with MSDN is a comprehensive solution for enterprise applications in teams with demanding needs of high-scale and high-quality. It takes advantage of the full Microsoft enterprise platform. It is targeted at enterprises, independent software vendors (ISVs) and systems integrators that target enterprises. The product supports testing, including manual testing, Smart Unit Tests, load testing, lab management and more. It also supports working with large and complex code bases using features like codemap, code clone, code search, Intellitrace and more. It supports advanced DevOps with release management and Intellitrace in production. It also features Team Foundation Server, Visual Studio Online Advanced, $150 a month in Azure credits, training and support.
Indeed, a core goal of Visual Studio Enterprise 2015 is to improve the DevOps experience for enterprises, Azizirad said. “We rarely have a discussion with an enterprise customer anymore that does not include DevOps, so we want to provide the smoothest experience around DevOps.” With Visual Studio Enterprise 2015 Microsoft provides DevOps with automated deployments and continuous monitoring.
“This SKU is all about extending and simplifying Visual Studio 2015 for the enterprise—to make it accessible to the broadest number of developers in the enterprise,” Azizirad said.
“We’ll continue to offer Visual Studio Professional, Team Foundation Server, Team Foundation Server Express, Visual Studio Express and MSDN Platforms as a part of the complete Visual Studio 2015 and MSDN portfolio,” he said.
Azizirad said Microsoft’s goal is to make Visual Studio easier to use, no matter what platform developers are targeting, no matter what app they are building and no matter what language they are using—be it C#, Visual Basic, C++, Python, Node.js, or HTML and JavaScript.
Pricing for Visual Studio 2015 Enterprise with MSDN per user per year in the Microsoft Store online is $5,999 new and $2,569 for renewal. Pricing for Visual Studio Pro 2015 with MSDN is $1,199 new and $799 for renewal. Microsoft says the new pricing is a value over Visual Studio 2013 pricing, where Visual Studio Ultimate with MSDN was $13,299 new and $4,249 for renewal. Visual Studio Premium 2013 with MSDN was $6,119 new and $2,569 for renewal. For 2015, the Ultimate and Premium SKUs are combined into Visual Studio Enterprise 2015. Pricing for Visual Studio Pro 2015 with MSDN is unchanged from the 2013 pricing of $1,199 new and $799 for renewal.
Estimated pricing for Visual Studio Enterprise 2015 with MSDN per user per year in Microsoft’s Open program is $4,466 new and $1,640 for renewal. For Visual Studio Ultimate 2013 with MSDN under the same program, pricing is $7,793 new and $2,861 for renewal. Pricing for Visual Studio Premium 2013 with MSDN is $3,573 new and $1,312 for renewal.
Microsoft said Visual Studio 2015 Enterprise with MSDN will be 43 percent lower than the price of VS 2013 Ultimate. That is for volume licensing purchases. However, for the retail pricing, VS 2015 Enterprise with MSDN is actually 55 percent lower than the price of VS 2013, Microsoft said.
“Customers who have an active subscription for Visual Studio Premium with MSDN or Visual Studio Ultimate with MSDN will automatically get upgraded to Visual Studio Enterprise with MSDN,” Azizirad said. “And the pricing of Visual Studio Enterprise with MSDN will be significantly less than the current price of Visual Studio Ultimate with MSDN.”
More information on the Visual Studio 2015 product line can be found here.