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The powers that be would like to know a good business reason to upgrade 2500 desktops to .NET 4.0.

What are good business reasons for doing so?

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  • I guess beta-testing for Microsoft :P Sep 10, 2009 at 14:04
  • I'm still trying to upgrade to 3.5
    – recursive
    Sep 10, 2009 at 14:10
  • @recursive: trying? Having problems? Sep 10, 2009 at 14:15
  • You'd have to explain your business. If your business is delivering COBOL applications, I doubt there's much value, for example. Nov 15, 2009 at 0:56

10 Answers 10

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If you can't provide a reason and have to ask for one here, it is a good sign you don't have a business case to upgrade and your management is right.

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  • We ahd the situation where developers moved from VS 2005 to VS 2008 and realised later that .Net 3.5 wasn't installed on all desktops. Then they upgraded to VS 2008 SP1 and had to wait for .Net 3.5 Sp1 to be deployed. Soon they'll get VS 2010, so I was just trying to be proactive and get plans for a 4.0 deployment. It will have to be done sooner or later.
    – Graeme
    Sep 11, 2009 at 6:39
  • The Visual Studio installer (and service packs) include the correct version of the .NET framework.
    – jrummell
    Apr 20, 2010 at 15:58
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The benefit of using C# 4.0? Developer Productivity.

End users wouldn't be able to tell the difference between any of the other versions of the framework. So it's unlikely they would with this one.

BUT there are a heap of benefits for developers: New Features in C# 4.0

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  • 2
    Hmm... I'm not sure I'd say "heaps". Unless you happen to be working with COM or dynamic languages, there's really just generic variance for delegates and interfaces, and named arguments/optional parameters. Not nearly as big a set of changes as for C# 2 or C# 3. Note that using C# 4 doesn't require .NET 4, if you stay away from dynamic typing and the new COM features...
    – Jon Skeet
    Sep 10, 2009 at 14:07
  • As someone else said - there's MVC2 EF2, presumably fixes and other improvements too. But I guess the main reason is - if we don't do it sooner, we'll do it later. Though I suppose we could save ourselves the cost and jump straight to v.next if there are more compelling reasons.
    – Graeme
    Sep 10, 2009 at 14:23
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I guess paid beta-testing for Microsoft :P

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Why do you want to roll out .NET 4? That's probably a good start for building a business case.

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The only reason I know if is increased productivity. So far, each version of the framework has offered tools that allow me to get projects done more quickly, saving the company money.

So, if you are familiar with the new features, and can see how they would boost productivity or offer some other business advantage, that's your answer. If you can't, then management is right.

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  • But I'd be shooting myself in the foot if I told my boss "install this and we'll be so much more productive" ;-)
    – Graeme
    Sep 10, 2009 at 14:25
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You only need to install this if and when any apps come along that are built on the 4.0 framework. And as far as I can tell, there are none. I wouldn't even start to consider installing the framework until VS 2010 and Office 2010 come out.

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The only good reason is if your company uses desktop applications that require .NET 4.0, and it will probably be a while before that is the case.

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In the short term, there is quite likely to be no good business reason to move, unless the business has an actual requirement that can only be satisfied with the new version.

In the long term, skill, support, and functionality issues are likely to dictate a jump to a new version of a platform at some point.

The question is how often should you jump. Generally, the business will (and IMO should) lag at least one or two versions behind the "latest and greatest". This is because hard work pays off eventually, but laziness pays off now :-)

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Visual Studio 2010, Entity Framework 2, MVC 2, etc...
Mostly all about developer environment.

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I generally wait until an image refresh cycle comes around and then put all current versions of the framework on the new image at that time (in addition to standard stuff like getting latest AV defs and auto updates included in the image, so it's not hit by a huge download and install when it's first used).

There's been a few requirements for specific versions here, and it's been nice to be able to say "yeah, we're good for that" rather than having to devise a deployment methodology in a tight timeframe.

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