Microsoft introduced some interesting changes last week regarding the TFS licensing requirements.
What’s changed?
- Team Explorer Everywhere: You no longer need to purchase Team Explorer Everywhere separately. Before today, Team Explorer Everywhere users had to purchase both a Client Access License (CAL) and the Team Explorer Everywhere software, whereas Visual Studio Team Explorer users only had to purchase a CAL – the Visual Studio Team Explorer software has always been a free download (TE 2008, TE 2010, TE 11 Beta) for users who had a license to access a TFS server. Now the story is the same for Team Explorer Everywhere (TEE 2010 with SP1, TEE 11 Beta).
- Team Foundation Server Reporting – Microsoft removed the TFS CAL requirement for viewing reports in TFS. This addresses a long standing concern that it was not reasonable to require a CAL for the occasional stakeholder who wanted to check a report to see progress or issues.
- Using TFS from within Microsoft System Center Operations Manager – With the upcoming release of System Center 2012, you will be able to connect your operations team to your development team, allowing them to better collaborate on production issues. Operations Manager 2012 includes the ability to escalate tickets and all the associated diagnostic data to development by connecting it to Team Foundation Server. The licensing is updated to enable your Operations Manager users to take advantage of this integration without also needing a TFS CAL.
More information and all the details here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/bharry/archive/2012/03/08/even-better-access-to-team-foundation-server.aspx