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

From: Daniel Rudy (dcrudy_at_invalid.pacbell.nospam.net.0123456789)
Date: 03/29/04 

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2004 09:10:21 GMT

And somewhere around the time of 03/28/2004 12:38, the world stopped and
listened as Ed Kaim [MSFT] contributed the following to humanity:

> 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.
>
>

Well well well...This is an unexpected pleasure. I don't expect you to
bite, but I'll let you know that I don't use Linux myself. I'm more of
a FreeBSD fan.

>>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.
>
>

That is true. But you must also consider the fact that you can obtain
open source software development tools for much less than what
Microsoft, or any other development company, charges. You can get them
for free, as in no monetary cost, if you want to. But, once again, you
are pretty much on your own when it comes to technical support. But,
there is a HUGE community out there to help you out if you run into
problems, a much bigger community that what can be found on MSDN.

>>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.
>
>

Part of this relates to my response above.

I fully understand Microsoft's position on this. Microsoft markets a
product for developers and expects a return on investment from that
product. It's the same for any for-profit company. The only reason I
could see a company purchasing Visual Studio is if they are doing
software development for the Microsoft Windows platform only. If they
are also writing software for Unix environments, then why use
Microsoft's development tools when the same tools that are used for Unix
software development is available on the Microsoft platform?

Visual Studio is available only for the Microsoft platform. GCC is
available on *ALL* platforms...Unix AND Windows.

>>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.
>
>

Maybe, but I don't use Visual C++, so I wouldn't know. As for 100% ANSI
compliant C++ compilers, AFAIK there are *NONE*. Nothing is 100% compliant.

>>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.
>
>

And here's the thing. If Web Services are standards compliant, then it
doesn't matter what tool is used to get the job done, Visual Studio, or
otherwise.

>>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.
>
>

Except GPL. I remember something about a Microsoft EULA that stated
something like the following:

"You may not use this software development product to develop software
that is to be licensed under the GNU General Public License."

Or something to that effect.

>>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.
>
>

Actually, it does. What he is talking about is using non-Microsoft
development tools that are monetarily free for development of .NET
applications.

>>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.

True, but if you can reduce the expense of software development tools to
nothing, then any minor loss of productivity during the relearn phase is
inconsequential.

>
>
>>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
>

But, if you go with a Linux vendor,

Suse Workstation 9.1: $79.95
RedHad Enterprise Workstation: $179.00

Microsoft Windows XP Professional: $299.00
Microsoft Office: $549.00

StarOffice 7.0: $79.95

And those prices are with offical technical support. Furthermore, if
you want any additional software such as SQL or Exchange, then that
costs extra while with the Linux distros it is all included.

It gets even better, companies that are big enough write their own
distros for their own internal use. IBM is a case in point. So the
only cost to a company that writes their own distro is the time invested
putting it together and deploying it.

But, there's not just Linux that's out there:

FreeBSD: $0
Over 10,000 ported applications: $0 for most of them.

This is what Microsoft is competing with. 

-- 
Daniel Rudy
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