Is SourceGear Viable?

[Pix]

I hope I can be really frank here -

We don't want to use TFS because:

- It's over $5000 just for five developers
- I read that all the problems are not smoothed out and that will probably take another year. Stability problems no thank you.

So then the question is can we invest in SourceGear - by that I mean:

- What are the odds you guys are in business a year from now (sorry, brutal honesty)
- Have you had a big decline in sales during the TFS hype/beta/release process?

Thank you,
Pix

[lbauer]

- What are the odds you guys are in business a year from now (sorry, brutal honesty)

I'd say 100%. I'm betting my job on it.

- Have you had a big decline in sales during the TFS hype/beta/release process?

Not at all. Vault is a great product, with thousands of satisfied customers. We'll be releasing Vault 3.5 next week and Vault 4.0 is under development. We think there's room in the source control market for both Vault and TFS.

[ericsink]

I hope I can be really frank here

Always.

- What are the odds you guys are in business a year from now (sorry, brutal honesty)
- Have you had a big decline in sales during the TFS hype/beta/release process?

We will definitely be in business a year from now. Believe it or not, we've experienced no decline in sales since TFS came on the scene.

Vault and TFS are different in a lot of ways. I recently received a story from one of our customers about the decision process that brought them to us. They did an evaluation of Vault, TFS, Subversion and Perforce. They had the money to buy any of the four. Vault was the only product that met their requirements. I considered that very high praise considering that the other three competitors in that bakeoff are all excellent tools.

I'll admit we've lost some customers to TFS. For some people, TFS is what meets their requirements. I'm okay with that. I want customers to use the tool that is best for them.

I'm sure some folks are moving to TFS simply because it's new. Early adopters tend to always want the latest thing. They came to us when Vault was the latest thing. Now TFS is the latest thing, so they are moving on. I'm okay with that. I always knew those folks wouldn't stay long.

Version control is a very, very fragmented market. No player dominates. There are dozens of companies in this market, and most of them are profitable and successful.

As a private company which does not disclose its revenues, I can't prove any of this. But the truth is that if we did publish our financials, most people would be shocked at how strong and healthy this company is.

[Pix]

Thank you for the responses.

I believe our decision is made to go with Vault.

That's another advantage of dealing with SourceGear, an open forum where key people will discuss their viewpoints.

Best regards,
Pix

[ismangil]

I hope I can be really frank here -

We don't want to use TFS because:

- It's over $5000 just for five developers

If a team can't afford TFS then just go with Vault. Period. Full stop.
If you can't afford Vault, go with Subversion.

You can move to TFS later on anyway, once you've made millions of dollar selling your software.

That's the easy part.

If a team can afford TFS then, as Eric mentioned, you need a proper evaluation. For example, if all you really need is source control, TFS is overkill. However if you're prepared to use all that TFS gives: issue tracking, requirements, project management and the likes, then TFS would probably greater value than trying to integrate many other system.