Microsoft Announces Visual FoxPro 6.0
ORLANDO, Fla., May 18, 1998 — Today at Visual FoxPro DevCon 98, Microsoft Corp. announced the Microsoft® Visual FoxPro® database development system version 6.0. The new version will enable developers to build high-performance scalable database solutions and components. The 1,600 DevCon attendees saw demos of enhanced productivity, ease of use and enterprise development features in the new version of Visual FoxPro.
A member of the Visual Studio
™development system family, the industry’s leading development tools suite, Visual FoxPro 6.0 enables developers to take advantage of the latest advances in the Windows® and Windows NT® operating systemsScheduled for widespread availability later this summer, Visual FoxPro 6.0 is designed to give more than 500,000 developers using Visual FoxPro a more efficient and powerful way to build data-centric, multitier client/server and Web-based applications and to help ensure that new and existing applications are year 2000-compliant.
“Visual FoxPro is essential to our OmniTRACS mobile information software product development,”
said Michael Harlan, manager, software applications engineering of the OmniTRACS division at QUALCOMM Inc.
“We believe Visual FoxPro 6.0 will enable our team to be more productive and will provide our customers with powerful and scalable management information solutions while improving our time-to-market.”
Builds High-Performance Scalable Components
Visual FoxPro 6.0 is enhanced to build data-intensive components for the middle tier of three-tier applications. New support for Microsoft Transaction Server (MTS) will allow developers to manage and scale components to hundreds of users and provide cross-component transactions. MTS support, along with enhanced support for Active Server Pages and Internet Information Server (IIS), will let developers build database and electronic-commerce applications that take full advantage of the World Wide Web.
“Visual FoxPro, combined with the other tools in Visual Studio, is the best way for developers who use Visual FoxPro to move to a three-tier architecture for enterprise development,”
said Paul Gross, vice president of the tools group at Microsoft.
”
The advances in the new version will make development easier without sacrificing the traditional strengths of FoxPro, like an incredibly fast engine and great data management. Today you see more and more multitier development with different tools, languages and backends like Microsoft SQL Server
™and Oracle 8. Visual FoxPro 6.0 is a perfect tool for this type of environment.”
Year 2000-Compliant Applications
Visual FoxPro has always supported four-year date fields, but with Visual FoxPro 6.0, Microsoft has introduced a strict date format to prevent ambiguous dates and help ensure that new and existing Visual FoxPro-based applications are year 2000-compliant. The new version uses a strict date format of ^yyyy/mm/dd; this format prevents ambiguous dates like 10/11/12, which could represent different dates in different countries. Developers can take existing applications, built with any previous version of Visual FoxPro, and recompile them in Visual FoxPro 6.0 to identify noncompliant dates.
More Productive and Easier to Learn
Visual FoxPro 6.0 will ship with an Application Wizard and Application Builder to assist developers in creating an object-oriented framework for jump-starting development. Also, included in Visual FoxPro will be a set of new Foundation Classes containing over 100 prebuilt reusable classes that provide common functions to many applications.
To improve testing and debugging, Microsoft added a Coverage Profiler that checks and identifies which lines of code are being run and how long it takes for each line to execute. New support for ActiveX® Documents allows developers to migrate existing forms and applications quickly and easily to the Web. Visual FoxPro 6.0 will also come with a new Web-publishing wizard.
Visual FoxPro 6.0 to Ship in Visual Studio 6.0
Visual FoxPro will be available as a standalone product as well as included in Visual Studio 6.0, the comprehensive suite of Microsoft developer tools for Windows and the Web. Visual FoxPro 6.0 and Visual Studio 6.0 are scheduled to be available during the second half of 1998. Additional information on Visual FoxPro can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/vfoxpro/ .
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 FoxPro, Visual Studio, Windows, Windows NT and ActiveX are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.
QUALCOMM and OmniTRACS are registered trademarks of QUALCOMM Inc.
Other product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.
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