Microsoft Buys DevBiz For Visual Studio Web Tools

Microsoft celebrated the tenth anniversary this month of its Visual Studio developer tools line by acquiring one of its ISV tools partners, devBiz Business Solutions of Rochester, N.Y. Financial terms of the deal, announced Monday, were not disclosed.

DevBiz's flagship product is TeamPlain Web Access, a Web interface for Microsoft's Team Foundation Server that allows users to manage work items and share documents, reports and source code. Microsoft immediately opened TeamPlain Web Access up as a free download.

Within the next few months, Microsoft will release a new version of TeamPlain as part of its Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server Power Tools. The software will be fully integrated into future versions of Visual Studio Team System, company executives said.

Acquiring TeamPlain gives Microsoft a Web client for Team Foundation Server and opens access to TFS users who do not also have VS 2005 licenses.

Microsoft announced the deal at VSLive, a .Net developer conference in San Francisco. This week's gathering also highlighted the 10-year anniversary of the Visual Studio line, which debuted with Visual Studio 97's launch at a Microsoft Developer Days in 1997.

A year after it reached major milestones with Visual Studio -- the new Visual Studio Team System shipped in late 2005, followed a few months later by the complementary Team Foundation Server -- Microsoft is gearing up for the next major Visual Studio release, Orcas. A ship date has not yet been announced.