There's been a lot of coverage on NTeam lately, and I guess it's time to give my thoughts on it. While I applaud the ambition these guys have, this whole effort seems like it's done out of spite. If NTeam is such a great idea, why wasn't it started long ago, rather than just after VSTS pricing was announced?
My personal opinion of this project is that the end result (if ever completed) still won't be as easy to use or integrated as Team System. It can't be, it's made of bolting together a bunch of separate applications. That's been Rational's problem, and I don't think they've figured that out yet - even with IBM's money. And while lack of integration may not bother people, it should, because that costs TIME. Some people (and companies) seem to have more time than money, so they don't mind using their time to save money. In my opinion, these companies are simply overstaffed (I feel a flame coming on).
The biggest cost on development projects is not tools, it's staffing. If the average salary for a project team member is $70K, when you factor in benefits and overhead (taxes, office space, equipment, utilities, etc.), that person is probably costing you at least $80K (likely more, but we'll assume you work standing up using a Pentium II computer and you don't have A/C in your office). If that person works 1880 hours a year - 40hrs/wk, minus 25 PTO (15 vacation/sick days and 10 holidays), they are costing $42.50 an hour. Again, these are very conservative estimates.
So, lets assume a team of 10 people (mix of developers, testers and project managers). If each person spends TWO HOURS (a small amount) a week because the NTeam products require more effort than VSTS, that costs $44,000 a YEAR. It could be argued that 2 hours/week is high. I've seen projects that use a lot of open source tools patched together, and I personally think the number is probably much higher than that. However, it's not 2 hours for each person, it's usually some of the most highly paid team members doing a lot of work configuring and supporting the tools each week.
Also, from what little I've seen of NTeam, it sounds like they are going to patch together a bunch of developer tools. To really be an alternative, they also need:
- A portal site simliar to WSS
- Reporting
- Built-in support for process
- Distributed load testing
- Integration with Project and Excel
So if you factor in TIME, I think NTeam will likely be a more expensive product, and it won't be as nice. Of course, I'm building a services offering around VSTS, so I'm a bit biased. However, from the sounds of it, there will be more services opportunity per install of NTeam than for VSTS, so that doesn't really matter to me if NTeam is successful.
I'm curious to see how all of this plays out. I personally think NTeam will never come out in a version that meets expectations. The burden placed on these guys by trying to match features with VSTS will be huge. This is just a massive undertaking.