What edition of Visual Studio 2008 for commercial projects

Friend of mine just established own coding company. They wanted create professional application written in .NET.

Now he on the stage buying software. We have discussed what VS version is absolutely minimum for this purposes.

There are lot of different version Professional / Team Suite / Team Developer ... I wonder what you recommend?

Ideally: less (possible) cost but not short-sightedness? Would be possible base on only VS Professional Edition?

I forgot to add that friend's company is partially refunded by EU. So it would be better to him spend more money at start then pay for upgrade in future. So, looking rather for target solution.

We have looked at comparison matrix obviously. W开发者_运维百科e couldn't find strong arguments for "Team" edition. Believe most of "Team" features can be supplemented by 3rd parity tools (nUnit, Subversion, Resharper) what he used to use anyway...

If VS Professional would be selected - GDR will be the one think we noticed really missing in that approach.

Definitely check out Microsoft BizSpark. For next to nothing Microsoft will provide a software startup with Visual Studio, SQL Server, and other dev tools. I would also say that the edition doesn't matter as much as what comes with it. Look at the feature matrices of the various VS packages and figure out what you need. You can always upgrade later. I've done a lot of contract work with VS Express and there are no licensing restrictions on what you do with the software you build. Start small, and buy as necessary.

I suggest a look at the Visual Studio Editions comparison sheet and just check what you need. Note that from a technical perspective, you are not locked if you choose to start with a smaller edition.

At least Pro - given the description above you want to look at the BizSpark programme. If you don't/can't go down that route then you should be looking at an MSDN sub to at least the VS Pro level.

I would start with the Express Editions and upgrade to another edition if you miss functionallity (e.g. Add-Ins like Resharper; they cannot be used in the express edition). Upgrading is no problem since you can use your projects in all editions.