Key Element of Visual Studio Team System to Ship in March

Published: February 1, 2006

by Alex Woodie

One of the most important new aspects of Visual Studio 2005 is the Team System, a new capability that enables programmers to assume different roles during the development process. While Visual Studio 2005 was released to manufacturing months ago, the key server technology that lets this team development happen was still a work in progress. But it is expected to be available next month, a Microsoft executive said this week.

S. Soma Somasgear, vice president of development for Microsoft, said in his blog that Team Foundation Server for Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) will be available to developers by March. "Team Foundation Server is the cornerstone of the Visual Studio 2005 Team System," Somasgear writes. "As a collaboration platform, it offers a completely new source code control system, issue tracking, project management, and reporting in a single, integrated data store."

With different roles for architects, testers, developers, designers, and managers, the Visual Studio team system helps developers get the job done faster, according to Somasgear. "This means that in addition to having a highly productive development experience, they can ensure that their goals are aligned with their team goals, they can work collaboratively with their team members, they can have visibility and control over the activities that they manage and influence, they can have a better understanding of requirements and frankly be able to add more value where it counts," he writes.