News
Microsoft Reveals Visual Studio 2015 Editions and Pricing, Drops Ultimate Tier
- By Becky Nagel
- April 3, 2015
This week Microsoft announced the editions that will be available for Visual Studio 2015, as well as their costs, when it releases the new version this summer.
The lowest tier, Visual Studio Community 2015, is on par with Visual Studio Community 2013 and will remain free. Visual Studio Professional 2015 with MSDN will cost $1,199 and correspond fairly directly with Video Studio Professional 2013 with MSDN.
Where the consolidation (and considerable price savings) comes in is with the highest tier. Instead of offering both Visual Studio Premium with MSDN and Visual Studio Ultimate with MSDN, as it did with 2013, Visual Studio 2015 will combine those tiers into the new Visual Studio Enterprise 2015 with MSDN.
The biggest savings will come to former Visual Studio Ultimate with MSDN subscribers -- while they paid $13,299 for new subscriptions and $4,249 for renewals, the new Enterprise edition will cost $5,999 new and $2,569 for a renewal.
Note that volume licensing/resellers may offer additional discounts.
Both Ultimate and Premium subscribers will be automatically converted to Enterprise subscribers. Microsoft is also offering a free upgrade to the Enterprise tier for certain customers.
Visual Studio 2015 is currently in CTP 6. It can be downloaded here.
About the Author
Becky Nagel is the vice president of Web & Digital Strategy for 1105's Converge360 Group, where she oversees the front-end Web team and deals with all aspects of digital projects at the company, including launching and running the group's popular virtual summit and Coffee talk series . She an experienced tech journalist (20 years), and before her current position, was the editorial director of the group's sites. A few years ago she gave a talk at a leading technical publishers conference about how changes in Web browser technology would impact online advertising for publishers. Follow her on twitter @beckynagel.