Microsoft Commits to November Release Date for Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5
BARCELONA, Spain, November 5 /PRNewswire/ --
- Microsoft expands interoperability options for partners, delivers new
innovations with Microsoft Sync Framework and Popfly Explorer releases.
Today, during the keynote address at Microsoft TechEd Developers 2007, S
"Soma" Somasegar, corporate vice president of the Developer Division at
Microsoft Corp, announced that Microsoft will release Visual Studio 2008 and
the .NET Framework 3.5 by the end of November 2007. Visual Studio 2008 and
the .NET Framework 3.5 enable developers at all levels to rapidly create
connected applications that offer compelling user experiences for Windows
Vista, Windows Server 2008, the 2007 Microsoft Office system, mobile devices
and the web. Soma also unveiled plans to open new opportunities for Visual
Studio partners, as well as to deliver new tools and resources for
developers, including a first Community Technology Preview (CTP) of the
Microsoft Sync Framework and new capabilities for Popfly Explorer.
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"The highly social and visual nature of the web has fundamentally changed
what users expect from all applications they interact with, regardless of
whether it's on a customer-facing website or Windows rich client application,
or a desktop business application built using Microsoft Office," said
Somasegar. "Traditionally, organisations have been hard pressed to deliver
the richer, more connected applications and services they need to boost
productivity, drive revenue and stay ahead of the competition. With Visual
Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5, it is easy for developers to use the
skills they already have to build compelling applications that take advantage
of the latest platforms."
FWBS Ltd, Xerox Corp, Dell Inc and K2 are just a few of the early adopter
customers that are already experiencing the benefits of these releases. FWBS
used Visual Studio, the .NET Framework and the Microsoft Office system to
build an Office Business Application (OBA) for the law field. The application
enables users to work within Microsoft Office -- the tools they use every day
-- while also dramatically improving productivity and helping users respond
quickly to changing business needs.
Xerox has also had early success developing applications with the new
tools. "We've already seen significant advantages from using Visual Studio
Team System 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5. With the first application we built,
we easily saved 50 per cent of the time and money it would have taken to
create the same application with other tools," said Eugene Shustef, feature
design lead, Global Technology, Xerox. "That's more than a savings to IT --
it delivers a huge time-to-market advantage because it put the tool into the
hands of our analysts six months sooner than they would have had it
otherwise."
Creating New Opportunities for Partners
Microsoft also announced plans to make additional investments in the
Visual Studio partner ecosystem. In response to partner feedback and in order
to provide better support for interoperability with other developer tools and
cross-platform scenarios, Microsoft is today announcing plans to change
licensing terms, no longer limiting partners to building solutions on top of
Visual Studio for Windows and other Microsoft platforms only. This licensing
change will be effective for the release of Visual Studio 2008 and the Visual
Studio 2008 SDK.
"Integrating dynaTrace's cross-platform application performance
management and diagnostics product with Visual Studio has opened up
additional commercial opportunities for our business and delivered a
compelling solution for our customers. .NET and Visual Studio is a strategic
platform for our business, and Microsoft's additional investments in the
partner ecosystem make it even more compelling," said Klaus Fellner, senior
director of product marketing at dynaTrace. "We're looking forward to taking
advantage of the new technology available with the launch of Visual Studio
2008 and the partner benefits available through the Visual Studio Industry
Partner (VSIP) programme."
Microsoft also announced plans to create a shared source licensing
programme for Premier-level partners in the VSIP programme. The programme
will provide these partners with the ability to view Visual Studio IDE source
code for debugging purposes, and simplify the process of integrating their
products with Visual Studio 2008. Tools for Today and Tomorrow
Microsoft also announced a number of additional resources for developers
of all skill sets, enabling them to make the most out of their Microsoft
tools investments to build great applications on the latest platforms:
-- The first CTP of the Microsoft Sync Framework demonstrates Microsoft's
ongoing investments in synchronisation and builds on the
synchronisation functionality available in Visual Studio 2008. With
Visual Studio 2008, developers can rapidly take advantage of offline
synchronisation capabilities to sync-enable applications and services
easily with rich designer support. The Microsoft Sync Framework
extends the support featured in Visual Studio 2008 to also include
offline and peer-to-peer collaboration using any protocol for any data
type, and any data store. This is part of Microsoft's long-term
commitment to providing synchronisation for partners and independent
software vendors that can embed the Sync Framework into their
applications easily to create rich sync-enabled ecosystems that allow
any type of data to follow their customers wherever they go. A new
release of Popfly Explorer will add new web tools that provide web
developers and Popfly users an easy way to add Silverlight gadgets
built in Popfly to their web pages, as well as publish HTML web pages
directly to Popfly.
These latest releases are part of the broader Microsoft Application
Platform, a portfolio of technology capabilities and core products that help
organisations develop, deploy and manage applications and IT infrastructure.
They also mark another major milestone leading up to the global launch of
Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008 on 27 Feb 2008 in
Los Angeles.
Product Information and Availability
Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 will be available by the
end of November 2007. The .NET Framework 3.5 will also be available to end
users via a free, optional download from Microsoft Update. A CTP of Microsoft
Sync Framework is available today at http://msdn.microsoft.com/sync. Popfly
Explorer is a hosted development environment available today at
http://www.popfly.com. More information about all of these releases is
available at http://www.msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio.
About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is the worldwide leader in
software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realise
their full potential.
About Microsoft EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa)
Microsoft has operated in EMEA since 1982. In the region Microsoft
employs more than 13,000 people in 60 subsidiaries, delivering products and
services in 138 countries and territories.
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