Are Developers Ready For Structure?

Microsoft's Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio Team System, due out next month, offer substantial advances in programming power and ease of use. But it remains to be seen how long it will take software developers and VARs to adjust to the new capabilities and follow through with strategic commitments.

The new tools, which will play integral roles in helping the upcoming Vista and Office 12 take root in corporate America, offer more sophisticated life-cycle and process-management capabilities that could force many Microsoft partners to alter their approach to development.

"With this release, [Microsoft is] giving guidance to development shops about where they need some level of process, which is important," says Joe Shirey, vice president of solutions at Interlink Group in Englewood, Colo. "But your average shop has zero processes. This is a big leap toward adding quality to the application-development life cycle, but it is a big leap in one's approach to it."

Analysts and VARs say the same holds true for Visual Studio Team System. The technology is a vast improvement over its existing Source Safe Repository, which was aimed at smaller development organizations and departments within a larger company, and was meant mainly for local-area networks. Visual Studio Team System is sculpted more for developers targeting enterprise-class applications, such as those fitting into a services-oriented architecture, and for development teams widely dispersed geographically and working over wide-area networks.

Microsoft is hoping the added capabilities in Visual Studio that allow developers to create applications with sophisticated graphical interfaces, including 3D graphics, will pay off from a competitive standpoint. Developers can use the tools to leverage the Windows Presentation Foundation, formerly known as Avalon, in Vista, to create richer client or Web-based applications in a more automated fashion.

The Visual Studio 2005/Vista combination could give Microsoft an advantage over competitors such as Google, which is focusing its development efforts around better ways to find and access data, and is sticking with 2D graphics, some industry observers believe.

"Microsoft is betting that by giving designers and developers the tools to create 3D graphics and full-motion video capabilities for applications, they can compel people to upgrade on both the clients and servers. This is a big competitive bet," says Dana Gardner, principal analyst at Interarbor Solutions, Gilford, N.H.

Gardner and others add, however, that the hefty investments VARs and IT shops will have to make in Visual Studio 2005, Vista and Office 12 to put more graphically sophisticated environments in place will need to be weighed carefully.

"Architects in the enterprise are now getting an idea for what these tools can do for them in productivity gains," he says. "But just because they think it is hot doesn't mean the bean counters upstairs will grant a 14 percent budget increase to them to do all this. They'll want more than flashy demos."