SAN FRANCISCO, March 10, 1997 — At the Visual Basic Insiders’ Technical Summit today, Microsoft Corp. announced the availability of the final released version of the Microsoft® Visual Basic® programming system version 5.0, Control Creation Edition. The Control Creation Edition, the newest member of the world’s most popular rapid application development tool family, is the easy way to create ActiveX
™
Controls for enriching Internet, intranet and client/server applications and is available for free download (connect-time charges may apply) from http://www.microsoft.com/vbasic/ .
Overwhelming Developer Demand for Control Creation Edition
A beta version of the Control Creation Edition released Oct. 28 at the Microsoft Site Builder Conference is now in use by tens of thousands of developers and ISVs worldwide. Since its introduction less than five months ago, developers and ISVs have built more than 215,000 ActiveX Controls using the Control Creation Edition, and many of them are used in commercial Web sites.
Web sites featuring ActiveX Controls built with Visual Basic 5.0, Control Creation Edition include the following:
http://www.berk.com/highview/mtr/index.htm
http://www.towersdata.com/fct/hypo.htm
http://www.infoseek.com/activex /
http://www.reachus.com/contest.htm
http://www.ktb.net/~tanjor/ActDiary.htm
http://www.ktb.net/~tanjor/Game.htm
http://www.flash.net/~schnick/gamepage.htm
http://www.world-net.net/users/warder/memory /
http://www.world-net.net/users/miller /
http://www.wmsoftware.com/showfonts.htm
http://www.gamepoint.com/
http://home.earthlink.net/~cpeschka/activex/
http://kc.palmerston-north.co.nz/cricket/
“The response we’ve seen to the Control Creation Edition has been phenomenal,”
said Paul Gross, vice president of developer tools at Microsoft.
“Its introduction has continued to fuel the rapid growth of component-based development by supplying developers with a wealth of components to customize and/or plug directly into their applications – reducing development time and providing a richer user experience.”
The Control Creation Edition makes it easy for developers to package functionality as a reusable component, reducing coding time and increasing developer productivity. ActiveX Controls are fast, compact, reusable software components that can be used in a wide range of products, including Internet browsers, productivity suites such as Microsoft Office 97, and development tools such as Visual Basic, Microsoft Access, PowerBuilder and others. ActiveX Controls can also be hosted in products that license Visual Basic 5.0, Applications Edition, such as future versions of Autodesk AutoCad, Adobe Photoshop and dozens of other soon-to-be-released software applications.
New Business Opportunities, Increased Productivity for Developers
The Control Creation Edition has created a wealth of new business opportunities for developers and ISVs, including the development of new products that take advantage of the Control Creation Edition’s capabilities, as well as opening up new markets and access to new customers for existing products and/or controls.
“The Visual Basic 5.0, Control Creation Edition has unleashed the power of creative programming and opened up a wealth of new business opportunities for ISVs like ourselves,”
said Gustavo Eydelsteyn, president of VideoSoft Inc.
“We have just released VideoSoft VSDOCX, a product that automatically creates user documentation for controls created by the Control Creation Edition. We believe that the easy-to-use and powerful ActiveX Control creation capabilities of Visual Basic 5.0 will certainly make it the programming tool of choice for many developers.”
In addition, the Control Creation Edition’s ease of use, intelligent development environment and ActiveX Control wizards enable developers and ISVs to achieve substantial productivity gains – reducing time-to-market and increasing revenue opportunities.
“We’ve increased our productivity 340 percent by using Visual Basic 5.0, Control Creation Edition to create the latest editions of our ActiveX components,”
said Mike Sax, president of Sax Software Corp.
“For us, the Control Creation Edition means faster development, easier maintenance, and more time to add cool features. For our customers, it means that they can use it to tailor our ActiveX Controls to their specific needs.”
Part of the Visual Studio Family of Tools
Visual Basic 5.0, including the component-building functionality of the Control Creation Edition, is included in the Visual Studio
™97 development system, a comprehensive suite of Microsoft development tools for building client/server, multitier and Web-based solutions. The Visual Studio 97 development system will include the Visual Basic programming system, version 5.0; the Visual C++® development system, version 5.0; the Visual J++
™
development software, version 1.1; the Visual FoxPro
™
database, version 5.0; and the Visual InterDev
™
Web application development system, version 1.0.
The release version of Visual Basic 5.0, Control Creation Edition is available for free download (connect-time charges may apply) from the Microsoft Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/vbasic/ Control Creation capabilities will be integrated into the Learning, Professional and Enterprise editions of Visual Basic 5.0 when they are available in stores, scheduled for later this month.
In addition to being distributed over the Internet, Visual Basic 5.0, Control Creation Edition will be available in a number of current and upcoming Visual Basic books, including these:
-
“ActiveX, Visual Basic 5 Control Creation Edition,”
Gary Cornell and Dave Jezak, Prentice Hall
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“Active Visual Basic 5.0,” Guy and Henry Eddon, Microsoft Press®
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“Active Visual Basic,”
Guy Eddon, Microsoft Press
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“Visual Basic 5.0 Control Creation Starter Kit,”
Clay Walnum, Que Corp. -
“Visual Basic No Experience Required,”
Steve Brown, Sybex Inc.
-
“Inside Visual Basic Scripting Edition With ActiveX,”
Eric Smith and Jeffery McManus, New Riders Publishing
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (NASDAQ
“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software for personal computers. The company offers a wide range of products and services for business and personal use, each designed with the mission of making it easier and more enjoyable for people to take advantage of the full power of personal computing every day.
Microsoft, Visual Basic, ActiveX, Visual Studio, Visual C++, Visual J++, Visual FoxPro, Visual InterDev and Microsoft Press are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.
Other product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.
For more information, press only:
Diana Galbreath, Waggener Edstrom, (206) 637-9097, [email protected]
Christian DeNike, Waggener Edstrom, (206) 637-9097, [email protected]
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