Now that TFS 2013 update 4 is out I wanted to talk about one of the features that may bring a financial incentive for your organization to upgrade. Microsoft changed the licensing scheme for TFS and now changed the basic 'Limited' access level and replaced it with 'Stakeholder'. So what does this mean?
Stakeholder licenses now allow for people who are not directly on the team to create and modify work items (not just their own!) and use the basic planning tools. With many of the customers I'm working with this will translate into savings as they will no longer need to tie up CAL's for occasional TFS users.
As for the rest of the access levels a 'Basic' license is a TFS CAL. A CAL can be purchased separately which includes many standard features. A 'Basic' CAL will give you the ability to manage code, builds, charts and use the advanced agile planning tools. So basically this is your development license and is part of a TFS CAL or an MSDN Professional subscription.
The 'Advanced' access level adds some nice features like feedback, testing management and chart authoring. To obtain an advanced license you would need MSDN Ultimate, Premium or Test Edition.
The bottom line is that this is a great change that will help existing customers that are struggling to manage and juggle their licenses and give an incentive for new customers.
Thanks for tuning in!
