Why stick with Vault if MSDN subscriber?

[rsmckee]

With the advent of Visual Studio 2005 Team Systems, can you please provide some bullet points to help justify staying with Vault as a source code control solution? We currently have 115 licenses. We are upgrading to 3.1.9 tonight, which I believe would be our last free upgrade. My boss just asked me today to provide sufficient justification for not moving to Team Systems solution. All of our developers have a full developer MSDN licenses.

If we want to continue using Vault with 115+ users and spend the necessary money to upgrade to future releases, why would we not switch over to Team Systems? Please provide me some good feedback on this. Please also include any information about future upgrades that you have.

Thank you very much for your time.

Shaun McKee
Production Control
AIM Healthcare

[jclausius]

Thanks for the question. There are a couple of questions in your post, in order to
organize the responses, I'll answer then in different posts.

With the advent of Visual Studio 2005 Team Systems, can you please provide
some bullet points to help justify staying with Vault as a source code control solution?

I suggest you review the decision from the opposite perspective - "Why switch to Team System?"
After all, the old philosophy of not fixing what works is often the wisest policy.


What is the cost of switching to Team System?

It may seem like your licensing costs may be zero, but in addition to the cost of a Team System Server,
there will be other costs associated with the transition.


Team System is a very early product. Some users are reporting difficulties which will probably
be ironed out in future releases.

On the other hand, willingness to accept these risks is a characteristic of the customer, not
of the product. Some people are early adopters. They prefer to always be using the newest and
most interesting thing. If you are such a customer, switching to Team System may be desirable.

Team System is somewhat different from Vault and Visual SourceSafe in a number of ways.
The paradigm feels foreign. There will be costs associated with your users learning a new way
of doing things.


Sometimes the devil is in the details

Team System does not support the "Share" feature supported by SourceSafe and Vault. If you use
this feature, the transition will be more painful.

Team System does not support the "edit-merge-commit" model (sometimes called "CVS mode") without being connected to the server. This defeats the purpose of enabling disconnected operation, which is why many people use this approach.

Team System's VS .Net 2003, Visual Studio 6, and VB 6 IDE clients are not supported. Not only does
Vault support these clients, but Vault 3.5 will also introduce an integrated DreamWeaver client.

Team System clients are far more dependent on communication with their server. Network traffic
is likely to be higher and the overall experience may be slower for remote users.


Support, Support, Support
Customers get different levels of service and support from firms like SourceGear than they do from
firms like Microsoft. Think about which kind of attention you prefer.


In the end, we hope to keep you as a customer, but only if our product is the best choice for you.
If you would like to find out more about Vault 3.5, I can ask someone from our Sales staff to contact you.

If you do decide to switch to Team System, we will wish you well.

[jclausius]

Please also include any information about future upgrades that you have.

Vault 3.5 will be released within the next couple of weeks. This release
will contain some great features, which a lot of users have been asking
for.

Here is a sample of the Vault 3.5 feature set:

New Functionality

• Export / Import Folders - This feature will allow you to move an
  entire folder along with file history and labels between Vault repositories.
• History Favorites - Store and invoke predefined filters of commonly
  run History Queries for users, actions, comments, etc.
• Ghosted Folders - Within the Vault GUI client, a new setting allows
  items not found within the Vault Repository to be seen within the
  Folder Tree and File view of assigned Working Folders.
• Dreamweaver client - Full support of Vault within Macromedia's Dreamweaver IDE.
• Built In Folder Diff - Added a built in Folder Diff utility for faster diff
  comparisons between folders.

Improved Functionality

• Obliterate performance - Improvement in performance when
  obliterating deleted items from the Vault Admin Tool.
• Obliterarte UI - Changes made within the obliterate tab to show a tree
  view of obliterated items allowing an easier way to navigate through
  deleted items.
• Status Search - Status searching has been tweaked for speed and
  allow interaction with common Vault operations.
• Improved UI support with .Net 2.0 Framework - Worked on the Vault
  GUI client's interaction with changes made to the .Net 2.0 Framework.

We are excited about this release, and hope to have it in customer's
hands shortly.

If you have other questions regarding Vault 3.5, please let us know.

[srsimons]

If you look closely at the MSDN licenses, you have to purchase Team Foundation Server and Sql Server seperately from the msdn licenses. The version of Team Foundation Server that comes with the MSDN subscriptions only supports 5 users (legally.) TFS also doesn't play nicely with anything else and will need its own server. My company recently evaluated TFS and Vault and will definitely not be purchasing TFS due to the points that I mentioned. If you are still thinking about TFS you should try installing it on a server and playing with it. The install alone should be enough to keep you away.

[Aion]

I have been using Visual Source Safe and SourceOffsite for many years now.

About a year ago I was thinking about switching to Vault because of MSVS database corruption and because Vault had some nice new features. But since we have MSDN subscriptions and Microsoft had announced that they where soon releasing TFS I decided to wait for TFS.

Then TFS was released. Due to TFS strict software requirements I invested in a new server that could be dedicated to TFS. The install of TFS was time consuming but not difficult if one follows the install guidelines in every detail.

I was very excited to try out TFS. But my excitement did not last long. TFS was not remotely what I expected.

First of all what I was looking for was a replacement for Visual Source Safe. What I got was a fully integrated development management system.
This might be great for many companies but for those of us just needing a version control system (because we use other tools for bug tracking etc) TFS is overkill in this aspect.

Second I was missing control. Working with source control bound projects in VS2005 was second to none but VS2003 and other non VS related stuff was not easy to handle. The TFS client application (Team Explorer) is lacking even the most basic features of Vault (E.g. one cannot see what files have been changed or what files are in the checkout dir but not in the repository - not to mention the missing 'share' functionality).

So TFS was not for me. It might be the perfect solution for some but not all. My recommendation is to try it out before making any decisions. It might fit your needs but it might also be very disappointing.

I have decided to go with Vault instead of TFS.

[andrew00]

Guys,

I've been using Vault since 1.0, since SourceSafe Collab, and I love it. I love the product, I love the company, and I love the support. But Mr. McKee's boss is raising a good point that I'm sure many of SourceGear's customers, and many of your customers' bosses, will raise - why not switch if VTS is free?

I thought about making the switch by decided against it. Vault is clearly a more mature product and, as you said, the support is second to none. But I really think you all should make a concerted effort to articulate the reasons to STAY with Vault, so that people like Shaun have ammnution to take to their bosses (and people like me can think clearly about our decision). There's definitely a strong argument to be made, and you guys should make it - in the form of a PDF whitepaper, or download, or WHATEVER - I think it's a mistake to let us infer from the post here what the reasons to stay with Vault are. Shaun's boss, for instance, has to weight the cost of 155 licenses (which is a lot of money) with the drawbacks you've described. They may not use Share functionality (I don't, I branch), and everything else you've given is vague and not easily quantifiable, which means it can't easily be weighed against the Vault price tag.

So my suggestion? A post or even a forum DEDICATED to competitive analysis!

Just a thought. Keep up the good work.

[rsmckee]

Thank you all for your responses. Jeff, I appreciate the time you took to respond. As I formulate my cost/benefit analysis I will most certainly use your input.

I do have a few, more specific, questions for you. These are typical of what I am looking for.

Does SourceGear plan on developing an offering that includes the 'shelving' concept of TFS?

You currently have integration with FogBugz, we use it. Do you plan on offering a similar integration with VS work items?

Thank you again for your time.

[ZackJones]

rsmckee: While you're going through this process check out Dragnet. We used FogBugz for a good while and were very pleased with it, but when SourceGear came out with Dragnet we dropped FB. All of our developers have been really happy with the two SourceGear products.

[jclausius]

Does SourceGear plan on developing an offering that includes the 'shelving' concept of TFS?

We have a Request For Enhancement for shelve support, but it might be a while before this is released. The RFE is currently set for
the feature set of Vault which will appear after our next two major releases - Vault 3.5 and the version after that. Of course, since
Vault's features are customer driven, if enough people voice an opinion, that can always change.

You currently have integration with FogBugz, we use it. Do you plan on offering a similar integration with VS work items?

Currently there are no plans for VSTS work item tracking. However, we do plan on creating tighter integration between Vault and
Dragnet.

[jclausius]

andrew00:

Thanks for the feedback and your support. This is definitely a topic that will get more air play over time.

why not switch if VTS is free?

So, I have a quick question about this. If you have not updated MSDN, why would anyone think VSTS is free?

To Shaun - what MSDN are you referring to in your original post?

[ismangil]

We have a Request For Enhancement for shelve support, but it might be a while before this is released. The RFE is currently set for
the feature set of Vault which will appear after our next two major releases - Vault 3.5 and the version after that. Of course, since
Vault's features are customer driven, if enough people voice an opinion, that can always change.

+1 for shelving please.

[ismangil]

Team Foundation Server is much more than a source control system. However if you are already paying 115*US$2000+ per developer for a MSDN Team subscription, then it is just a small expense to get the Team Foundation Server itself (another USD$2000 or so), the CAL is included in the MSDN subscription.

Just make sure when you say MSDN subscription, you meant the MSDN Team and not MSDN Professional subscription. Otherwise MSDN Professional + Vault Gold support is MUCH cheaper than MSDN Team!