Team Foundation Server is a mainstay of Microsoft’s collaboration platform for software development teams. It provides modern application lifecycle support for modern app development, including agile project planning and management tools, version control, build automation, and the continuous deployment automation needed to effectively and efficiently manage software development projects.
In addition to the value TFS provides to development teams targeting Windows, more and more we’re seeing it used in heterogeneous environments as well, whether developers are using Visual Studio or Eclipse or Xcode; whether developers are building apps with .NET or Java or C++ or JavaScript or any number of other languages; and whether developers are building apps for Windows, Windows Phone, Windows Azure, Android, iOS, MacOS, or Linux. We’re also seeing the cloud become a key enabler across the lifecycle of applications.
Last year at the Build conference, we announced Team Foundation Service, a version of Team Foundation Server hosted on Windows Azure, accessible from anywhere using existing and familiar tools, and welcoming all languages and platforms. Over the last year, we’ve run the service as a preview, and during this time we’ve continued to build out the breadth and depth of functionality included. Today, I’m very excited to share that Team Foundation Service is now released, out of preview and available for full production use. Check it out for yourself at https://tfs.visualstudio.com.
Team Foundation Service includes a free usage plan with a robust set of features that make it quick and easy for individuals and lean teams to get started with this application lifecycle management (ALM) platform, and without the need to stand up their own hardware, manage backups, or keep the server up-to-date. It welcomes developers targeting Microsoft platforms and other platforms, with support not only in Visual Studio, Excel, and Project, but also for developers on Mac OS, Linux, Solaris, and HP-UX through Team Explorer Everywhere and the Git-TF command-line tools. The free plan includes support for up to 5 users, an unlimited number of projects, version control, work item tracking, agile planning tools, feedback management, and build (the last of which is still in preview).
In addition, MSDN subscribers at the Visual Studio Test Pro with MSDN, Visual Studio Premium with MSDN, and Visual Studio Ultimate with MSDN levels will have use of the service included as a subscription benefit. For the time being, anyone can sign up and use the service for free. We’ll be announcing more about paid plans and services in 2013.
With the many new computing platforms and development tools becoming available right now, it’s a great time to be a developer. You can sign up for your own Team Foundation Service account at https://tfs.visualstudio.com and see for yourself what a cloud-hosted, modern collaboration and ALM tool brings to your team. We’re currently adding new features and capabilities to the service every three weeks or so, putting us in a great position to react to your needs and make adjustments based on your feedback. Use it and let us know what you think.
Namaste!
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