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Is this just a rebranding? As a long time user of VSTS, I am failing to see how Azure DevOps is different from VSTS. Boards, CI/CD, testing - that's already pa

Is this just a rebranding? As a long time user of VSTS, I am failing to see how Azure DevOps is different from VSTS. Boards, CI/CD, testing - that's already part of VSTS, and has been for quite some time. Is Microsoft just rebranding for keyword searching or something? Or are there actual technical changes / new features that are being introduced?

flyingswift 8y ago
This is a rebranding yes. VSTS was a bad name that confused potential customers because they thought of the IDE, and so no one really knew what the product was from the name alone. (Work on VSTS team)
- GordonS 8y ago
  Hah, long time TFS and VSTS user here - I recently got so annoyed with colleagues mis-using these acronymns that I sent out an email with a glossary of terms for TFS, VSTS, TFVC, VSO etc :)
  - sunahe 8y ago
    Time to send a new one then
- styfle 8y ago
  Won't the new name confuse potential customers because they think of the Azure cloud for deployment? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17953823 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17953823
contextfree 8y ago
it looks like rebrand + redesign + decoupling the individual services so they're easier to adopt independently?
- divyavaishnavi 8y ago
  Yes that's right + free pipeline for OSS project. From: PM for Azure DevOps here (formerly VSTS)
  - GordonS 8y ago
    Hasn't there always been 1 free pipeline on the free plan, but there was a limit on the number of monthly build minutes? I'm nitpicking though, and I have to say, 10 concurrent jobs and unlimited build time is really generous.
ethomson 8y ago
PM for Azure DevOps here (formerly VSTS). It is a rebranding, but it's more than merely a rebranding. We're breaking out the individual services so that they're easier to adopt. For example, if you're just interested in pipelines, you can adopt only pipelines. We've got some neat new features launching today and more coming soon. My favorite new feature is the Azure Pipelines app the the GitHub Marketplace. It makes it one-click to build a continuous integration and pull request validation pipeline right from your GitHub repository, you don't even need an Azure DevOps account to get started.
- solatic 8y ago
  If the point of the rebranding is to help drive adoption of the individual components of what used to make up VSTS, then it seems to me like the strategy is to try and get people to switch from pre-existing toolsets to Azure tooling. Maybe it would be more persuasive if you could show some kind of comparison or case study for switching? For instance, if you want to make it easier for people to adopt Azure Boards, then why should they adopt Azure Boards over the myriad other agile planning products out there? More importantly, if you're trying to make individual services easier to adopt, why is there only unified Azure DevOps pricing and not pricing solely for the individualized products (excepting Azure Pipelines pricing, which is a per-agent pricing model)?
  - ethomson 8y ago
    You're right that we need to provide some better comparisons here, but the big reason that I'm excited about making individual components easier to adopt isn't for competition, it's to help people round out what they're missing in a dev tools stack. There's a lot of shops that are happy with their git hosting provider and their agile planning tool and go looking for a CI/CD tool and may have been turned off by VSTS because it looked like a monolith. Making it clear that you can just use Azure Pipelines without having to use the entire stack was a priority for us, but you're absolutely right that we need to round this out with some better case studies. Thanks for the feedback.
    - 8y ago
dstaheli 8y ago
Part of the change is 10 free parallel build jobs on Linux, macOS, and Windows for open source projects.

flyingswift 8y ago

This is a rebranding yes. VSTS was a bad name that confused potential customers because they thought of the IDE, and so no one really knew what the product was from the name alone. (Work on VSTS team)

GordonS 8y ago
Hah, long time TFS and VSTS user here - I recently got so annoyed with colleagues mis-using these acronymns that I sent out an email with a glossary of terms for TFS, VSTS, TFVC, VSO etc :)
- sunahe 8y ago
  Time to send a new one then
styfle 8y ago
Won't the new name confuse potential customers because they think of the Azure cloud for deployment? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17953823 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17953823

contextfree 8y ago

it looks like rebrand + redesign + decoupling the individual services so they're easier to adopt independently?

divyavaishnavi 8y ago
Yes that's right + free pipeline for OSS project. From: PM for Azure DevOps here (formerly VSTS)
- GordonS 8y ago
  Hasn't there always been 1 free pipeline on the free plan, but there was a limit on the number of monthly build minutes? I'm nitpicking though, and I have to say, 10 concurrent jobs and unlimited build time is really generous.

ethomson 8y ago

PM for Azure DevOps here (formerly VSTS). It is a rebranding, but it's more than merely a rebranding. We're breaking out the individual services so that they're easier to adopt. For example, if you're just interested in pipelines, you can adopt only pipelines. We've got some neat new features launching today and more coming soon. My favorite new feature is the Azure Pipelines app the the GitHub Marketplace. It makes it one-click to build a continuous integration and pull request validation pipeline right from your GitHub repository, you don't even need an Azure DevOps account to get started.

solatic 8y ago
If the point of the rebranding is to help drive adoption of the individual components of what used to make up VSTS, then it seems to me like the strategy is to try and get people to switch from pre-existing toolsets to Azure tooling. Maybe it would be more persuasive if you could show some kind of comparison or case study for switching? For instance, if you want to make it easier for people to adopt Azure Boards, then why should they adopt Azure Boards over the myriad other agile planning products out there? More importantly, if you're trying to make individual services easier to adopt, why is there only unified Azure DevOps pricing and not pricing solely for the individualized products (excepting Azure Pipelines pricing, which is a per-agent pricing model)?
- ethomson 8y ago
  You're right that we need to provide some better comparisons here, but the big reason that I'm excited about making individual components easier to adopt isn't for competition, it's to help people round out what they're missing in a dev tools stack. There's a lot of shops that are happy with their git hosting provider and their agile planning tool and go looking for a CI/CD tool and may have been turned off by VSTS because it looked like a monolith. Making it clear that you can just use Azure Pipelines without having to use the entire stack was a priority for us, but you're absolutely right that we need to round this out with some better case studies. Thanks for the feedback.
  - 8y ago

dstaheli 8y ago

Part of the change is 10 free parallel build jobs on Linux, macOS, and Windows for open source projects.