SQL Server 2012 :: Query To Consolidate Data From Tables

I need to make a query that counts installed developer software for all our developers (from the sccm database), for licensing purposes. The trick here is that a license should only be counted once per. developer and that should be the highest version. But in the database, the developers can have different versions of the software installed (upgrades) on the same computer and they often use several computers with different software versions.

So for example: A source table with two developers

-------------------------------------------------------------------
| dev1 | comp1 | Microsoft Visual Studio Ultimate 2013
| dev1 | comp1 | Microsoft Visual Studio Professional 2010
| dev1 | comp2 | Microsoft Visual Studio Premium 2010
| dev2 | comp3 | Microsoft Visual Studio Professional 2010
| dev2 | comp4 | Microsoft Visual Studio Premium 2012
--------------------------------------------------------------------

I want the result to be:
-----------------------------------------------------
| dev1 | Microsoft Visual Studio Ultimate 2013
| dev2 | Microsoft Visual Studio Premium 2012
------------------------------------------------------

I have created a query using cursors that give me the correct result, but it's way to slow to be acceptable (over 20 min..). I also toyed with the idea of creating some sort of CRL proc or function in C# that does the logic, but a SCCM consultant from MS said that if I create any kind of custom objects on the SCCM SQL Server instance, we loose all support from them. So I'm basically stuck with using good old fashioned T-SQL queries.

My idea now, is to use a CTE table and combine it with a Temp table with the software and a rank. I feel that I'm on the right track, but I just can't nail it properly.

This is how far I have come now:

IF OBJECT_ID('tempdb..#swRank') IS NULL CREATE TABLE #swRank(rankID int NOT NULL UNIQUE, vsVersion nvarchar(255))
INSERT INTO #swRank(rankID, vsVersion)
VALUES
(1, 'Microsoft Visual Studio Ultimate 2013'),
(2, 'Microsoft Visual Studio Ultimate 2012'),

[Code] ....