Microsoft Delays Team Tool as Users Look to Collaborate

News Story by Heather Havenstein

AUGUST 29, 2005 (COMPUTERWORLD) - Microsoft Corp. last week pushed back the ship date of a key component of its Visual Studio 2005 Team System. The delay in shipping Team Foundation Server postpones Microsoft's entry into a burgeoning market for collaborative software that can link developers in far-flung locations.

Analysts said that as IT operations use more remote developers, the need for change and configuration management tools, version control software and even weblogging tools is growing.

Team Foundation Server, a server-based product that supports integrated version control, reporting, work item tracking, process guidance and automated build capabilities, will ship in the first quarter of 2006 instead of on Nov. 7, Microsoft said. The remaining components of Visual Studio 2005—including the other pieces of Team System—will still ship on that date, according to Microsoft.

Meanwhile, the company will now add on Nov. 7 a third beta release of Team Foundation Server, which is needed for enterprise team development. The release will include a so-called Go Live license, which will allow companies to begin using the tool set to build and deploy applications, according to a statement from Soma Somasegar, vice president of Microsoft's developer division. The Go Live license doesn't include support and patch updates from Microsoft, according to the company's Web site.

Somasegar did say that all data within the third beta version of the foundation server will migrate seamlessly to the final version of the server.

Aaron Zupancic, a Salt Lake City-based senior software architect at Experlogix Inc., said the delay could prompt his company to push back the use of VS Team System by its internal developers. Experlogix plans to replace the Vault source-control software from SourceGear LLC with Team System to help its dispersed teams collaborate, he said.

Zupancic, also president of the Utah .Net User Group, said Team System's integration with Microsoft's SharePoint portal software will help the development teams too. "When creating a new project, you can immediately tie it to a SharePoint portal site and have team members share comments and documents," he said.

Anticipated Interest

Brian Randell, a senior consultant at MCW Technologies Inc., a consulting firm in Los Angeles, said that because Microsoft will be issuing Go Live licenses in November, many of his clients can now begin pilot projects with Team System.

Most, he said, are "chomping at the bit" to upgrade from Microsoft's Visual SourceSafe source-control tools to VS Team System because of its advanced reporting capabilities and metrics features.

Melinda-Carol Ballou, an analyst at market research firm IDC, said vendors such as Microsoft are targeting corporate users' emerging need to better manage extended development teams while adhering to increasingly rigid regulatory and compliance policies.

Some users, meanwhile, are ramping up other tools to better manage development teams. TextWise LLC, a builder of text-processing tools in Rochester, N.Y., began using an enterprise blogging tool in April from Traction Software Inc. to replace e-mail threads for collaboration.

The TeamPage blog software allows the company's development teams in Rochester, Baltimore, Boston and Syracuse, N.Y., to post design notes and status reports, said Rob Rubin, TextWise's chief technology officer.

To date, the company has had 1,200 blog postings, and this month it was able to avoid a 30-day setback to the development cycle because one group noticed a planned testing duplication on the blog, Rubin added.

Thomson Elite, which provides software to law firms, uses Borland Software Corp.'s StarTeam configuration management tools for its 200 developers in teams in Turkey, New Zealand and several U.S. locations.

Since it began using the system several years ago, the group has improved its productivity by about 35%, said Adina Kram, Thomson's release coordinator.