A new edition of Visual Studio Team System, aimed at database professionals who work alongside traditional developers, has shipped. The new edition allows database professionals to apply Visual Studio Team System's features, such as change management and automated testing, to the development of database schema and stored procedures. By making it easier for application developers and database developers to coordinate their work, the Database Professional Edition could make corporate application development more streamlined and predictable.

Pricing for the Database Professional Edition is the same as the other editions of Team System: the base price under Open Licensing is US$4,040 plus US$1,171 per year for a two-year MSDN Premium subscription. Discounts are available depending upon the number of licenses purchased. In addition, a Team Suite combining all four editions of Team System (Architect, Developer, Tester, and Database Professional) is available for US$8,080 plus US$2,343 per year for the two-year MSDN Premium subscription.

For an overview of Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals, see "Team System Extended to Database Pros" on page 25 of the July 2006 Update.

Other aspects of Visual Studio 2005 and Team System are discussed in the Nov. 2005 Research Report, "Visual Studio 2005 and Team System."

The home page for the product is msdn2.microsoft.com/teamsystem/aa718807.aspx.