One of the unique values Visual Studio provides is that over and above the built-in features we have a multitude of extensions to address various niche development scenarios. These extensions are provided by our strong partner ecosystem. The Visual Studio Partner Ecosystem is the strongest it has ever been in the history of Visual Studio. This year we are excited to share that over 1100 partners have created tools and extensions that integrate with Visual Studio 2015, Team Foundation Server, and Visual Studio Online. For Visual Studio 2015 RTM release itself we have 84 launch partners that have made new versions of their products available on the day that VS 2015 was released. Want to join in? Check out the VSIP Partner Program for info on how to join.
Not only do these extensions work with VS 2015 Enterprise and Professional, but you can also use all extensions with our free offering - Visual Studio Community. Get started with an extension from the Visual Studio Gallery.
Interested in writing your own extensions? It’s really simple to do so. Whether you’re interested in adding support for a new language, extending the Visual Studio interface, connecting a service to Visual Studio Online, or just customizing Visual Studio for your needs, we’ve got all the information you need on the Visual Studio Integration Portal. Also, take a look at Heather Brown’s post on Extending Visual Studio 2015 and VSO-extension-samples on GitHub.
Now that you know where to get the extensions and how to create your own extension, I’d like to share some details about our VSIP Partners. These partners have been working closely with us throughout the development cycle, to leverage the new extensibility points and features in VS. You can see there is a huge variety of partners who provide a broad choice of tools for you to use with Visual Studio and you can learn more about each partner in the Visual Studio Partner Directory.
In addition to our longest standing partners such as JetBrains, Intel, DevExpress, MicroFocus and Synergex who have all been in the Partner program for well over a decade, we have some new partners who are filling gaps and extending developer scenarios as well. Magic Quadrant leader Veracode brings cloud based security testing and static analysis, Saasabi lets developers do ad hoc analysis and reporting of VS Online activity, Agile teams use Chef for automated continuous integration and DevOps, and First Floor Software has a cool tool called XAMLSpy which lets you see everything there is to see about your XAML code. Download an extension from the Visual Studio Gallery or from Visual Studio Online Integrations!
Our Visual Studio Partner Program has grown significantly over the last few months, and we continue to embrace new types of partners, individuals, students and start-ups who can join the Basic program level for free. I invite you to learn about the benefits of Visual Studio's Partner Program and to join the program and become an active part of the Visual Studio ecosystem.
Thank you!
Tom
 | Tom Lindeman, Director of Partner Programs, Visual Studio Tom has shipped 23 products to market while at Microsoft, and currently manages the worldwide partner ecosystem program for developer tools in the Cloud & Enterprise Group. |