Microsoft sets Visual Studio 2005 pricing

Microsoft on Monday will release pricing for its upcoming Visual Studio 2005 development tools line.

The plan establishes costs for the new Team System for application lifecycle management, slashes the price of Professional Edition, and encourages users to sign up for the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN).

Visual Studio 2005 products are set for release in the second half of this year, with a second beta due in April. The product line features debuts at both the high and low ends of the tools stratosphere, with the Team System at the high end and the Express line for non-professional developers at the low end.

Volume pricing for the role-based products in the Team System starts at $3,191 and includes a subscription to the upcoming Premium iteration of MSDN. Role-based products are to be offered for developers, software architects, and testers.

The server-based product in Team System, called Foundation Server, is priced at $2,799. It tracks the status of projects and manages source code. The Team Suite, featuring all role-based products, starts in price at $6,382 and includes a subscription to MSDN Premium.

Microsoft with its tools pricing announcement is heavily promoting MSDN subscriptions.

“One of the things we recognized is that MSDN subscriptions are valuable to our customers because it gives them full access to the Windows platform,” including the provision of test licenses for products such as Microsoft Exchange, said Prashant Sridharan, group product manager for Visual Studio 2005.

Two annual subscription levels are being introduced with the release of Visual Studio 2005: Professional and Premium offerings.

The Professional subscription will feature testing and development licenses for Windows operating systems as well as phone support, a secure download area, and early access to betas and Community Technology Previews.

The higher level Premium release offers all the features of the Professional subscription but adds development and testing licenses for Windows Server System and Office 2003.

MSDN subscriptions will be offered with Visual Studio Professional Edition. The Premium subscription with Professional Edition costs $2,499 and $1,999 for renewals. The Professional tool with an MSDN Professional subscription is priced at $1,199 and $799 for renewals.

Microsoft is encouraging Visual Studio customers to subscribe to the existing MSDN Universal plan to receive a no-cost upgrade to a role-based Team System product when those products ships. Subscribers also will be offered special upgrade pricing to the Team Suite. The Universal program costs $2,799, but promotions bring the price down, according to Microsoft.

MSDN provides an effective way for Microsoft to reach and renew customers, said analyst Melissa Webster, research director at IDC.

“The more people who are signed up through MSDN, [then] Microsoft knows about them [and] they can market to them. They can upgrade them. They can give incentives to buy more,” she said.

The Universal variant of MSDN goes away when Premium and Professional premier, but subscribers will be transitioned, according to Microsoft.

Pricing for the standalone Visual Studio Professional Edition drops from $1,079 for the current product to $799 for the 2005 version. The Professional release is intended for code development on the .Net framework and is suitable for small teams.

Express products, for novice developers to build applications such as utilities or an MP3 player, are priced at $49 per user. Among the different versions of Express will be releases for building Windows applications and for developing personal Web sites or blogging sites.

“The idea is that we will finally have a developer tool that will be able to talk to the novice developer and we will be able to grow the next generation of programmers,” Sridharan said.

A level up from the Express line is the Standard Edition, for client/server development. This release will cost $299 or $199 for upgrades. One audience for Standard Edition is legacy Visual Basic 6.0 users, who have been disappointed with Microsoft’s discontinuance of that product.

Web developers who have relied on Macromedia’s tools platform also would benefit from the Standard edition, according to Microsoft.

Visual Studio 2005 Tools for the Microsoft Office System, which is geared toward developers building applications for Office, also will cost $799 and $549 for an upgrade.