Team Suite Vnext will be FREE (but ad supported)
Team Suite Vnext will be FREE (but ad supported)
At Mix08 in Las Vegas, I had the chance (!) to be invited to a special meeting. The invite was for only 12 people and it was to demonstrate a revolutionary new Visual Studio feature. We gathered with Scott Guthrie in a private room at the Aquaknox restaurant at the Venetian hotel where we were treated with exquisite seafood that would have a bad taste later on.
So what is that revolutionary new Visual Studio feature? Well, Microsoft plans to offer the next Visual Studio Version for free. Yeah, Visual Studio Express is already free you might say but I’m talking about the Team Suite here! Yep, Microsoft plans to offer the $10K product for free!!! So watch the catch? Isn’t that some good news? Well, Microsoft has some large teams dedicated to the development tools and they need to generate revenues to pay for those salaries so the Visual Studio VNext will be free but add supported. You might say that’s it’s a good deal because you get a $10K product for free by watching a few non obstructive ads well here the catch: the ads are obstructive. How obstructive? Check this out.
First of all, the advert system code name is called Barracuda. It is already included in the August CTP of Visual Studio Team Suite code name Rosario. You may have downloaded that version and found nothing special; this is because it is not activated by default. To activate it, Microsoft has created something clever: you need to input a special set of buttons from an Xbox 360 game controller!
So you need to connect an Xbox 360 controller to an USB port (the wireless one will also work) on the machine running Rosario and you need to input the button sequence in this precise order:
At the same time: press the Left trigger + Right trigger + Left thumbstick UP + Right thumbstick DOWN
While the above are pressed, press the D-pad in this order: Up, Left, Up, Down, Up, Right
If you entered the correct sequence, the controller will vibrate and this dialog will pop-up inviting you to restart Visual Studio.
After restarting Visual Studio, create a class library project and take a look at the code. Yep that’s an ad placed directly on top of your code and no way to turn it off!
Now shut down Visual Studio, unplug your network cable so you don’t have any Internet access and restart Visual Studio. You’ll be prompted by this dialog:
Yes, an Internet connection will be required to use that free ad supported Visual Studio. If you dismiss this dialog, Visual Studio just closes. That’s it! Impossible to use it on the train or at a client without being connected to their network. How convenient!
Now the shocking part (yes there are more shocking news!): when the application is compiled and deployed, the add system doesn’t go away because it’s built in the .NET Framework 4.0. When your users will start your app, they will be presented with an ad!
Microsoft has not completed the Web start-up ad yet but the plan is to whenever a new session starts, the start-up ad will be presented in a DHTML window over your actual application in the browser. Shocking? Wait, there’s more!
The ad system is connected with ADO.NET so ads are inserted right into the data you’re displaying. The plan is to have one ad being displayed at all time in grids.
Oh BTW, your users will also have to be connected to the Internet or your app will simply not run!
I don’t know about you but that whole ad supported Visual Studio thing smells fishy. I don’t like it at all and I’d rather pay for Visual Studio then get it for free and annoy my users. Before posting this info, I contacted Scott Guthrie for voicing my concerns. This is what he had to say: April Fools!!!!