Re: VS.NET is too EXPENSIVE. Developers switching rapidly from it.

From: Mike Cox (mikecoxlinux_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 03/28/04 

Date: Sun, 28 Mar 2004 15:35:54 -0800

In article <#R#npSQFEHA.2768@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl>, "Ed Kaim [MSFT]"
<edkaim@online.microsoft.com> wrote:

> I'm going to address the inaccurate anti-Microsoft issues in this post.
> I'm not going to bite on any of the Linux-based flamebait.
>> I'm a big fan of .NET and Visual Studio.NET. But at my company, we are
>> going to switch to Linux because, quite frankly, VS.NET costs way too
>> much in light of the huge competition from Linux. After all, in order
>> for MS to be successful it needs a large group of developers.
> If your company is considering a switch to Linux because you feel the
> cost of developer tools is too high then you may want to consider doing
> some more research before making a final decision.

It is not just the developer tools. Developers should be a loss-leader
if Microsoft wants people to use Windows and .NET. We have some linux
guys here at work who are showing managment that linux can do the same
thing as Windows in terms of COM, .NET, and win32 via WINE.

No one is using Borland, and Oracle Internet Developer. Websphere is not
used by very many medium sized companies.

>> At my company, I'm an MS proponent, but I have LOST the battle in terms
>> of justifiying the cost of using Visual Studio when there are free
>> Linux alternatives. My company won't use Visual Studio.NET stuff for
>> internal use because of its cost. Why should management spend thousands
>> of dollars per year for MSDN and VS.NET per developer when it can just
>> use Open Source software and documentation for free?
> Microsoft provides the SDKs for free. Microsoft provides Web development
> tools for free. Microsoft provides millions of lines of sample source
> code (and complete projects) and all documentation for free. You don't
> have to pay a dime to build apps for Microsoft's platform. If you feel
> you need Visual Studio, as millions of developers do, then there is cost
> because Microsoft has to invest in making it better. Much of that cost
> goes towards product servicing. If you can live without the drastic
> boost in productivity, support from hundreds of tools partners, and
> official technical support with a well-defined roadmap, then it's harder
> to make the case. The only really effective arguments you could make for
> not using Visual Studio would be if you need to build cross-platform
> client applications or if you're trying to take the company down from
> the inside.
>> Especially considering the fact that g++ is really standards compliant,
> Is it more standards-compliant than Visual C++? Look it up--you may be
> surprised. Also see how many 100% ANSI-compliant C++ compilers you can
> find, if any.
>
>> and that there is ACE+TAO for CORBA development.
> Yes, but most new development is using standards-compliant Web services
> for integration & remoting. Visual Studio excels in Web services
> development.
>> There is
>> troll tech for GUI app development which is completely cross-platform,
>> and you can choose the license you want, GPL or commercial.
> You can choose to license software you build with Visual Studio under
> whatever license you want.
>
>> There is
>> even mono and eclipse for .NET development.
> Yes--but this doesn't support the claim you make about why the cost of
> Visual Studio if making you move to Linux.
>> Why does anyone need Microsoft Visual Studio.NET and MSDN then?
>> Especially when it costs thousands per yer for one developer? I can't
>> make the cost argument, and there aren't any Visual Studio.NET
>> installations at my company, only VS 6.0, and any upgrades that happen
>> will be to Linux.
> Let's say the typical developer costs around $120,000 per year (which
> includes salary, benefits, equipment, training, and all other employee
> costs). In order tyo justify that employee, they must produce more than
> that in some way. It could be the development of a small app that helps
> information workers get projects completed faster or their contributions
> to the company's flagship software product. Either way, the faster and
> more effective they can be as a developer, the more value they provide
> to the company. If someone said "we can increase developer productivity
> by 5% (by having all the software on DVDs in the office and reducing the
> code used to integrate it), but it'll cost us an extra 3% ($2,799 for a
> new MSDN Universal subscription)", then most companies would be
> thrilled. With Visual Studio .NET and MSDN, developer productivity can
> be drastically improved in this way. In fact, many of the case studies
> have shown that development productivity reduces product cycles by more
> than half and project quality has increased substantially. You can
> search http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies to find an example similar
> to what your comapny does.

Developers do not cost 120,000 dollars. Half my company's developers are
in India where they cost about 15,000 dollars. The other half are in the
US, where the average programer makes 41,000 dollars and the support
costs are about 12,000 including Health insurance.

Remember that the development tools are just the tip of the iceberg. You
still have to buy win2003, MS SQL Server, Exchange, and the Windows
clients CALs, the Windows Desktops.

Management only cares about the bottom line. The linux guys here are showing
reports of how much we would save by switching to Linux. Now it does
pretty much everything Windows does.

Microsoft needs to get its prices in line so that the cost of switching
would be a bit more than what Microsoft products cost. The cost of
switching is basically employee retraining and some recoding.

>
>> But all is not lost. If you follow my pricing guide lines, you will
>> see people stay or convert to VS.NET. I am in the trenches so I know
>> what is going on. Here are my price ideas for VS.NET:
>>
>> Visual Studio.NET Professional: 129 dollars Visual Studio.NET
>> Enterprise : 199 dollars MSDN (The Enterprise version) : 125 dollars
>> per year. VS C# Basic Edition: 29 dollars.
> Thank you for your feedback, but I don't think this would be a
> justifiable business model. I am also in the trenches every day and have
> seen a huge percentage of developers upgrade already while MSDN
> subscribers automatically upgrade as part of their license. When you
> look at the online pricing of alternative offerings, Visual Studio
> pricing is very fair. IBM's Websphere Enterprise Developer: $6,177
> Oracle's Internet Developer Suite: $5,000 Borland's JBuilder X
> Enterprise: $3,500 Microsoft's MSDN Universal (which has more than just
> tools): $2,799

Microsoft is not looking at the competition clearly then. You aren't
competing against Oracle Internet Developer Suite, or Borland's JBuilder.
 These are practiacally dead, and have limited users in my experience.
Websphere is used more, but not by that much.

Microsoft has a huge market share. It always won by being the low-cost
competitor similar to walmart. Why can't Microsoft use economies of
scale to make a profit but still sell their product at a competitive
price? Remember, those other development tools are either pretty much
dead (Borland) or are not used as widly (Websphere) so their high cost is
probably more justified because of their lack of users. Those people
using them are probably paying the premuim not to use Micorosft products
for whatever zealot reasons.

Don' t let this issue be another Internet! Microsoft has lots of
supporters, but we can't champion MS if the costs are not right. Maybe
after you beat Linux and get longhorn up and running, you can raise the
prices, but right now I'm seeing a lot of people looking at other
options. Especially those burned by Licensing 6.0.

I have Linux on my desktop as part of my re-training, and kde is looking
really nice, and with my com knowledge, CORBA is a piece of cake(CORBA is
a bit nicer than COM). I'm compliling .NET apps with C# with Mono. Even
I'm compelled to see the linux guys case. Why would I spend 2 grand on
something when I could just switch in a few days and get the same
functionality for free? the 2 grand per workstation justifies the cost.
199 dollars would not.

I can see how having 50 billion dollars would insulate a company from
market realities, but not all companies are that fortunate. Don't let
this be another internet where MS has to turn on a dime. Price VS.NET so
it is cheaper to stay on it than switch, because once someone switches
there is no reason to go back because you never *have* to pay for linux
if you don't want to.

Once Palladium (NGSCB) is out of course unsigned code like linux won't
run, but if enough people are on linux, the NGSCB may be stillborn. Just
be competitive price-wise until longhorn and DRM are out. Why should my
company have to battle someone with lower costs because they use linux?
My company will switch to whatever makes them competitive.

> "Mike Cox" <mikecoxlinux@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:3d6111f1.0403281012.7877707f@posting.google.com...
>> I'm a big fan of .NET and Visual Studio.NET. But at my company, we are
>> going to switch to Linux because, quite frankly, VS.NET costs way too
>> much in light of the huge competition from Linux. After all, in order
>> for MS to be successful it needs a large group of developers.
>>
>> At my company, I'm an MS proponent, but I have LOST the battle in
>> terms of justifiying the cost of using Visual Studio when there are
>> free Linux alternatives. My company won't use Visual Studio.NET stuff
>> for internal use because of its cost. Why should management spend
>> thousands of dollars per year for MSDN and VS.NET per developer when it
>> can just use Open Source software and documentation for free?
>> Especially considering the fact that g++ is really standards compliant,
>> and that there is ACE+TAO for CORBA development. There is troll tech
>> for GUI app development which is completely cross-platform, and you can
>> choose the license you want, GPL or commercial. There is even mono and
>> eclipse for .NET development.
>>
>> Why does anyone need Microsoft Visual Studio.NET and MSDN then?
>> Especially when it costs thousands per yer for one developer? I can't
>> make the cost argument, and there aren't any Visual Studio.NET
>> installations at my company, only VS 6.0, and any upgrades that happen
>> will be to Linux.
>>
>> But all is not lost. If you follow my pricing guide lines, you will
>> see people stay or convert to VS.NET. I am in the trenches so I know
>> what is going on. Here are my price ideas for VS.NET:
>>
>> Visual Studio.NET Professional: 129 dollars Visual Studio.NET
>> Enterprise : 199 dollars MSDN (The Enterprise version) : 125 dollars
>> per year. VS C# Basic Edition: 29 dollars.
>

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  • Re: VS.NET is too EXPENSIVE. Developers switching rapidly from it.
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