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This week, Microsoft announced the pricing for the Visual Studio line of products. In most cases, the pricing should not be surprising. For the normal editions, the pricing is:
- Visual Studio 2005 Standard Edition: Flexible tool for part-time or line-of-business application developers building Windows, Web, or mobile applications.
Price: $299 ($199 for upgrade) - Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition: A comprehensive tool for professional developers.
Price: $799 ($549 for upgrade)
Additionally, the Visual Studio version for Office developers will also be available:
- Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Tools for the Microsoft Office System: For professionals using Excel, Word, and InfoPath to develop Office System solutions.
Price: $799 ($549 for upgrade)
I have previously mentioned the Express editions of Visual Studio. While it was believed that Microsoft could potentially give these products away, it has now been stated that the pricing will be $49. This should apply to the five language-specific Express versions:
- Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition
- Visual J# 2005 Express Edition
- Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition
- Visual C# 2005 Express Edition
- Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition
Nothing was stated on the price of the SQL Server 2005 Express Edition; however, it is still expected to be free in the same way that MSDE was free. Of course, Microsoft is free to change this.
The other Visual Studio Editions fall within the Team System. These are:
- Visual Studio Team Edition for Software Architects
- Visual Studio Team Edition for Software Developers
- Visual Studio Team Edition for Software Testers
- Visual Studio Team Suite
The Visual Studio Team Suite is actually a combined edition of the three individual products. It is expected that most people will obtain these products through MSDN subscriptions. The MSDN subscriptions, however, are not expected to contain all three products. Rather, the Universal MSDN subscription will contain only one role-based version of Visual Studio Team System. Unversal subscribers will be able to upgrade to the Suite.
Another product that Microsoft will be releasing is Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server. This is a stand-alone server that supports Visual Studio Team System.
One of the focuses for Visual Studio 2005 was to help increase individual programmer productivity. This is being done by cutting down the amount of code necessary to create programs, by improving the help features (Intellisense/Intellitask), and more. Although nobody likes to pay for upgrades, it seems that Microsoft has stuck with the standard pricing they’ve been doing in the past. As such, it will only take a few hours of saved time to justify the upgrades.
If you haven’t looked at Visual Studio 2005, you can find information on the betas and links for downloading them at http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/vs2005/.
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