Microsoft Announces Git Support For Visual Studio, Team Foundation Server And Service
Microsoft just made a major announcement that will likely take many developers by surprise. At the ALM Summit in Redmond, WA this morning, Microsoft Brian Harry just announced that its Team Foundation Server …
Context & Ripple Effects
Microsoft is adding Git alongside its Team Foundation tooling rather than requiring developers to use a single version-control workflow. The move matters because Visual Studio, Team Foundation Server and the hosted service sit at the center of Microsoft's application-lifecycle stack.
First-order effects
- Visual Studio and Team Foundation users can adopt Git without leaving Microsoft's development and collaboration tools.
- Microsoft broadens Team Foundation's appeal to teams whose repositories and workflows are already organized around Git.
Second-order effects
- Competing development-tool vendors face a more integrated Microsoft offering for teams that want Git-based source control with enterprise lifecycle management.
- Organizations using Microsoft tooling gain more flexibility in choosing version-control practices, reducing the switching cost between centralized Team Foundation workflows and Git.
Third-order effects
- The announcement points toward enterprise developer platforms competing on interoperability with widely adopted open-source tools, rather than on lock-in to proprietary workflows.
The trend: Enterprise software vendors are increasingly meeting developers in the tools and workflows they already use, then competing on the surrounding platform services.