Posted: Sep. 2, 2003

Recent changes to the Visual Studio Integration Partner (VSIP) program—Microsoft’s program to give tools ISVs access to Visual Studio’s extensibility APIs for building complementary products—are designed to make the program more accessible to small ISVs. (The program has been renamed the Visual Studio Industry Partner program, but the acronym remains the same.)

The original VSIP program was only viable for large ISVs who could afford the US$10,000 annual fee to join. But the addition of two new entry levels makes the program more attractive to a broader range of partners.

VSIP now consists of three levels of membership:

Affiliate membership is free and is designed for academic institutions. It provides access to the Visual Studio SDK and APIs. Support is provided by a user-to-user discussion forum.

Alliance membership costs US$3,000 per year. In addition to the Visual Studio SDK and discussion forums, Alliance members receive an MSDN Universal Subscription and have access to a Visual Studio logo program and co-marketing opportunities. Current members of the .NET Component Builders program (a program for tools vendors producing add-ons to the .NET Framework) are automatically enrolled at the Alliance level.

Premier membership costs US$10,000 and includes, in addition to the Alliance-level benefits, rights to distribute the Visual Studio IDE (but not Microsoft’s language tools, such as VB.NET or C#) with products. Current VSIP members are automatically granted Premier membership.