Forrester Report on SCM Trends

The PDF can be accessed HERE .

If you want to get a better idea of what SCM tools are being adopted and how Team Foundation Server is faring, I recommend you read this whitepaper.  It provides some great statistics around SCM tool adoption in Europe, including TFS, ClearCase, Subversion, and others.

My Thoughts (read the paper first)

Honestly (and not because I’m TFS-biased) the biggest surprise here is the actual adoption rate of TFS.  The tool has been out for about three years now, and showing 27% adoption is a terrific indicator how it’s been received in the market.

ClearCase is still (and to no surprise) the big player in larger, heterogeneous shops.  It’s always been the big, beefy gorilla.  We’ll have to see if that changes in these tough economic times.  Teams with existing investments if CC may not want to consider another investment in a newer platform, while others may consider a change for cost reasons as well – it will depend on their current satisfaction with the tool, ongoing maintenance costs, and payment schedule to IBM.

Not surprisingly, open source tools are becoming more and more attractive, not only for their perceived cost (although really, nothing is truly free) but for community-hype.  Still, VSS remains toward the top of the “current tools in use” largely due to that fact that it’s cheap and has been used for so many years in organizations that it’s difficult to conceptualize a move to a different platform.  I think a natural progression from VSS is TFS, and you’ll see TFS adoption grow as VSS begins its decline.

What does this all mean?  It just means that there are several competent tools out there, which makes it all the more important that your organization takes the time to consider multiple offerings, not just the status quo.