Avoiding a TFS Licensing Landmine – A little help wrapping your head around the TFS licensing landscape

Tamir Khason – Just code - TFS licensing model demystification or what should I buy for my company in order not to step on the licensing mine?

“Microsoft loves cumbersome licensing models . This is not because of their evil-heartedness, but because it make them possible to get more from bigger companies and less from smaller. However when you come into the real decision about how many and what kind of licenses you have to purchase, you stuck. Today we’ll try to make things clearer, at least for Team Foundation Server and Visual Studio, which is very base things for any software house develops things using Microsoft technologies.

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This is one of the most follow-up common questions I heard at TechEd09, “How do I get it and what does it cost?” And the answer is always, “It depends…<sigh>”

To help with the “<sigh>” Tamir has put together this great post. If you’re interested in getting on the TFS wagon, you need to check out this post.

Important Note: The Bible for TFS licensing is the Visual Studio Team System 2008 Licensing White Paper. While I liked the post, since it’s not directly from Microsoft, it may not be 100% “right”. So again be safe and make sure you check out the white paper… “Friends don’t let friends license TFS without reading the whitepaper” (Thanks @briankel !)