The guys and gals over at devlicio.us (great name) recently blogged about what Microsoft got wrong Team Foundation Server.  They complain about some of the things that I recently complained about such as the installation process and the incomplete feature implementation.  You can read about it here.

The same people released a blog entry today that lists some of the features that Team Foundation Server got right.  I agree with some of the items that they list even though there are some caveats to them.  I also disagree with some of the other items.  Here is a list of those items and my problems with them.

1. Attempt to package many different products into one - This is really the heart and soul of TFS and it is really the main reason people spend thousands of dollars per user for the product.  The problem is that the features that are integrated are not really all that well implemented.  Using Sharepoint for document management is a pain because it is bloated and hard to use.  The source control tool is faster but lacks the discoverability of common source control features (I talk about that below).
2. Ease of use - Uh, no not really.  The features may be "easy to use" but they are not very "user friendly".  Sure, a user will be able to figure out how to enter a work item in TFS but count how long it takes them to do so.
3. Integrated into the IDE - This is a very good feature but again it is not really well implemented.  Too many dialouge boxes to hit.  Too much text to read.  Also, is it really worth thousands of dollars per user to get TFS when they could already use free tools.
4. New version of VSS - I am not sure why the call this new VSS but they talk about the TFS source control.  Both are true.  Microsoft did release a new version of VSS that has http support and even resizable dialouge boxes!  But the blog entry talks about the TFS source control.  True, it has been rewritten from the ground up and it is a lot faster with a SQL Server backend.  The problem is that it is not easy to discover how to do common things that other source control tools do.  Ever try to roll back to a previous label in TFS source control?  You have to jump through hoops.
5. Ability to extend TFS and add new features -  This is the coolest feature about TFS.  Microsoft did a really good job defining the extensibility points within TFS.  The problem is with the UI again.  You can extend work items but everything for the data entry in work items is either a text box or a drop down.  Yuck!  Also, you have to mess with an XML file to modify work items.  It's again easy to do but very friendly.

I believe Morale will solve a lot of these problems that TFS has and add more productivity to the software development lifecycle.  It's blog entries like these that give me more motivation and believe in the product more than ever.