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tekkie's picture

Just how much 'dog food' eating does Microsoft do with Team Foundation Server?

tekkie asked on December 2, 2010 - 10:57am | Replies (1).

TFS looks very impressive on paper, its a highly integrated solution that covers most bases to various degrees for everything a dev team needs in terms of version control, configuration management, builds, automation, testing, workflow, etc.

But how much is it actually used in Microsoft? The marketing material certainly boasts some impressive numbers for the adoption of TFS within Microsoft, but just how much is it used in 'anger' at Microsoft?

Are there any other businesses that use TFS in business critical projects that you know of? What is the general perception of TFS in the CM community?

- Antoni

Edward.Williams's picture

I don't know about the dogfood thingy...but anytime the "user community" has to switch CM tools there is always apprehension, to say the least. I've worked many contracts as a Lockheed Martin employeee and in the private sector and this is always the case.

It's not a Microsoft thing. Changing CM tools means you change how you perform CM. Some tools do not have the same basic features as others, for example, so there is not only the "culture" change that people are apprehensive about, there is also the way things are done. Developers have to change how they do things. Testers have to change how they do things if their testing suite of tools are integrated with the CM tool.

People should be very cautious changing their CM tools. A lot may be riding on the success of the tool you are changing to.

1 Answer

Edward.Williams's picture

I don't know about the dogfood thingy...but anytime the "user community" has to switch CM tools there is always apprehension, to say the least. I've worked many contracts as a Lockheed Martin employeee and in the private sector and this is always the case.

It's not a Microsoft thing. Changing CM tools means you change how you perform CM. Some tools do not have the same basic features as others, for example, so there is not only the "culture" change that people are apprehensive about, there is also the way things are done. Developers have to change how they do things. Testers have to change how they do things if their testing suite of tools are integrated with the CM tool.

People should be very cautious changing their CM tools. A lot may be riding on the success of the tool you are changing to.
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