REDMOND, Wash., July 29, 2003 — Microsoft Corp. today unveiled the road map for future versions of its flagship development platform, Visual Studio® .NET and the Microsoft®
.NET Framework. By providing details on the direction of its development products, Microsoft is enabling its customers to plan further investments in Microsoft .NET-connected software. Future versions of Visual Studio .NET and the .NET Framework will provide a path to platform advancements while setting the bar in developer productivity and enterprise-grade performance, and fostering a worldwide developer community.
“Microsoft’s philosophy is to help developers achieve success with a comprehensive, integrated platform,”
said Eric Rudder, senior vice president of Server and Tools at Microsoft.
“As customers deploy successful projects with Visual Studio .NET and the .NET Framework today, our goal is to provide a road map for upcoming product innovations to help them plan their next winning strategy.”
Microsoft also announced today the Microsoft Visual Studio Industry Partner (VSIP) program, which provides partners with increased reach, scope and market opportunity. The revamped VSIP program, formerly called the Visual Studio .NET Integration Program, continues to enable independent software vendors to reach millions of potential customers and will offer enhanced benefits according to the level of participation. With improved integration support and a broader choice of third-party languages, components and enterprise tools that can be used in the Visual Studio .NET integrated development environment (IDE), customers and partners will have access to a wider variety of opportunities in the .NET ecosystem. (See related press release,
“Microsoft Expands .NET Ecosystem With New Visual Studio Industry Partner Program.”
)
“
Whidbey
”
: The Next version of Microsoft Developer Platforms and Tools
The next version of Microsoft developer platforms and tools will contain numerous enhancements that set a new standard for developer productivity, continue to deliver enterprise-grade scalability and performance, and enable businesses to develop a variety of solutions to meet their challenges. The
“Whidbey”
versions of Visual Studio .NET and the .NET Framework also will support the latest Web services specifications through Web Services Enhancements (WSE) for Microsoft .NET.
-
Visual Studio .NET
“Whidbey”
will provide enhanced debugging, no-touch deployment and other features such as Edit and Continue, maintaining Microsoft’s long-established tradition of placing a premium on developer productivity. -
The .NET Framework
“Whidbey”
will enable existing .NET Framework 1.1 customers to immediately take advantage of support for 64-bit CPUs, advances in security and administration, and improvements in performance and scalability — without any source code changes. -
Windows®
client application development capabilities will be enhanced in the
“Whidbey”
version of the .NET Framework. Developers will be able to develop more-sophisticated solutions using a broad palette of new data and user interface controls and take advantage of deployment enhancements that will make it simpler for applications to be installed and versioned. -
Web application development with ASP.NET will be improved with new controls for data access and visual appearance that reduce code in common scenarios by up to 70 percent, significantly improving performance of even the most demanding Web sites, and that provide enhancements for more-robust and secure Web services.
-
Mobile application development for the .NET Compact Framework will be extended in Visual Studio .NET
“Whidbey,”
enabling the creation of applications that run on the latest devices, including the Smartphone, Windows CE .NET 4.2-based devices and the newest versions of the Pocket PC.
A Path to Future Platform Advancements
Building off the recent introduction of Windows Server 2003, the .NET Framework and Visual Studio .NET 2003, Microsoft plans to align the
“Whidbey”
version of Visual Studio .NET and the .NET Framework with the next version of Microsoft SQL Server(, code-named
“Yukon.”
Developers will be able to leverage their existing skills in writing .NET-connected software using the Common Language Runtime (CLR) built into the database engine.
The next release of the Microsoft Windows operating system, code-named
“Longhorn,”
will be accompanied by a release of Visual Studio .NET code-named
“Orcas.”
Visual Studio .NET
“Orcas”
will support the managed interfaces, enhanced user interface features and other new capabilities the operating system will offer.
Office Development With Visual Studio Tools for the Microsoft Office System
Visual Studio .NET 2003 developers will be able to use the Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for the Microsoft Office System to gain a fully integrated development experience for building Microsoft Office-based applications. Available in the same time frame as Microsoft Office 2003, Visual Studio Tools for Office will offer developers improvements in security, productivity, deployment and maintenance.
The Microsoft developer tools road map white paper is available at http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/productinfo/roadmap.aspx .
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq
“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software — any time, any place and on any device.
Microsoft, Visual Studio and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.
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