Microsoft Releases Visual Studio 2005 Pricing Structure

[Peter Foot]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?contentid=4258' target='_blank'>http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.a...?contentid=4258</a><br /><br /></div>"Microsoft Corp. has showed detailed pricing and licensing terms for Visual Studio 2005, its application development tool set, as well as simplification of its Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) subscriptions. The company says MSDN is the primary vehicle through which most developers obtain Visual Studio. <br />Microsoft will reduce the estimated retail price in US dollars of Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition while offering special pricing to existing MSDN subscribers for Visual Studio 2005 Team System, the expansion of the Visual Studio product line to include integrated software life-cycle tools."<br /><br />One of the main changes for Pocket PC developers will be the introduction of device development tools in the Standard Editions which will retail at $299 (or $199 for a version upgrade). This comes in much lower than the $799 required for the Professional Edition. While there will be a range of even cheaper tools ($49) - the Express Editions which are targetted at the beginner or hobbyist developer, these will not support device development. The Visual Studio 2005 range is due for release in the second half of this year. For a list of prices for the whole range and the equivalent MSDN subscriptions follow the article link.

[mel]

Small ISVs and developers can get the whole thing (2005 Team System + MSDN subscription) for just $375. Visit this site to see if you qualify for this awesome deal: https://partner.microsoft.com/global/40010429

-Mel
Two Peaks Software

[PPCRules]

... the Standard Editions which will retail at $299 ...
the Express Editions which are targetted at the beginner or hobbyist developer ... will not support device development.

So the entrance fee to develop a program for my Pocket PC is $300? A couple years ago I could do it for free with eVB.

I think this must say something about the satisfaction level Microsoft has with it's current share of the "device" market. It seems to me that cheap development tools (I guess 'cheap' is relative) is a key means for growing application base, and subsequently, market share.

[Peter Foot]

... the Standard Editions which will retail at $299 ...
the Express Editions which are targetted at the beginner or hobbyist developer ... will not support device development.

So the entrance fee to develop a program for my Pocket PC is $300? A couple years ago I could do it for free with eVB.

I think this must say something about the satisfaction level Microsoft has with it's current share of the "device" market. It seems to me that cheap development tools (I guess 'cheap' is relative) is a key means for growing application base, and subsequently, market share.

Although I take your point about previously having free tools, this is a big improvement over the current pricing structure. The capabilities of .NETCF versus eVB along with the functionality available in the tools means there is a huge difference between what you got for free and what you get with Visual Studio. Also as a commercial product Visual Studio receives support and updates (3 Service Packs since .NETCF was first released) whereas eVB development was discontinued a long time back and the product still has many bugs and limitations.
Myself and several other MVPs have put forward the suggestion of a device development tool in the Express range to offer a basic starting point for device development, I can only hope that this is reconsidered in the future.

[DinarSoft]

How is this going to affect the freeware developers ?

[IndyPerk]

Having just converted to PPC after years with a Palm this article raised a question in my mind. With Palm I used a program called Pocket C to write Palm programs when I wanted something customized for me, although while I thought about it, I never tried to develop a commercial product.

Now that I am firmly in the PPC camp I'm getting that itch again to do some basic programming for my PPC. Is visual studio the only way to go or are there others?

Thanks for any input you can give!

[Peter Foot]

Having just converted to PPC after years with a Palm this article raised a question in my mind. With Palm I used a program called Pocket C to write Palm programs when I wanted something customized for me, although while I thought about it, I never tried to develop a commercial product.

Now that I am firmly in the PPC camp I'm getting that itch again to do some basic programming for my PPC. Is visual studio the only way to go or are there others?

Thanks for any input you can give!

For writing C++ applications you can still use the free eVC++ v4.0 product. Although VS2005 will support native code (C++) development for future devices.

Peter

[Zidane]

Do we know if eVc 4.0 is going to be able to use all of the features of WM2005 or are we going to have to purchase VS2005? I ask because I'm not interested in writing .NET apps as they don't have the speed that native C++ apps do.

[ctitanic]

Well, 300 dollars is much lower price than 1000 dollars for the interprise edition needed in VS 2003 to develop for our devices. So good, I like this prices.

[marovada]

For VB and C# programmers the question will be whether free command line tools will be available this time around for PPC (as they are for desktop applications), in which case I hope that Sharpdevelop will incorporate PPC development into their free product (which includes an IDE).

Let's hope someone from Sharpdevelop is listening: http://www.icsharpcode.net/OpenSource/SD/

Choice between free and $300, take free!

[ghenne]

There's always NS Basic/CE. At $149.95, it's a lot more affordable and probably easier to get going with, too.

http://www.nsbasic.com/ce


(Disclosure: I work for NS BASIC.)

[Flynn Arrowstarr]

From what I understand, you are supposed to be able to compile PPC apps from the command line in the .NET 2.0 SDK. So, we could see some 3rd party free or low-cost IDEs. I'm rooting for SharpDevelop as well. :D

Flynn