Microsoft Talk

New tools and programs improve collaboration and enable developers to create more stunning and secure applications.

Simplifying Development Today and Tomorrow

Zander showcased the substantial enhancements available in Visual Studio 2008 SP1 and the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1, including 20 percent to 45 percent performance improvements for Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)-based applications, a streamlined installation experience for client applications, and Windows Communication Foundation improvements that give developers more control over the way they access data and services.

For developers interested in taking advantage of these new capabilities immediately, Microsoft announced several special offers for both new and existing Visual Studio, Visual Studio Team System and Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) customers. These offers include upgrade pricing on Visual Studio Professional Edition for developers using any developer tool, a range of discounts for Visual Studio Professional customers to add an MSDN subscription, and a 30 percent discount on the step-up to any Visual Studio Team System role edition or to Visual Studio Team System Team Suite. Those customers starting a new MSDN Premium subscription today will not only immediately enjoy access to products such as Expression Web 2 and Expression Blend 2, but also get access to Visual Studio 2010 when it ships. More information about pricing and eligibility for these offers is available at http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/promotions.

“Microsoft’s goal is to enable our customers to use the latest and greatest development tools, and we don’t want cost to be a barrier to their success, particularly in these challenging economic times,” said Dave Mendlen, director of Developer Marketing at Microsoft.

Zander also disclosed details on two more areas of the forthcoming Visual Studio 2010 release focused on “inspiring developer delight” and “riding the next-generation platform wave.” Designed to simplify and improve the day-to-day experiences for millions of developers, Visual Studio 2010 will deliver the following:

• Windows 7 support. Advances include investments in Visual C++ to simplify development of native Windows 7-based applications and support of Windows 7 innovations such as multitouch user interfaces.

• Microsoft Office Business Applications support. Updates include the ability to build applications that span multiple versions of Office and new support for building applications using SharePoint Products and Technologies.

• WPF-based editor. The new editor provides an unprecedented level of insight into an application, presented in context with the code in a rich and easy-to-understand manner.

• Further C++ investments. Visual Studio 2010 also marks a major renovation of the C++ integrated development environment (IDE) to not only support emerging trends such as parallel computing, cloud computing and Web services, but also to provide a first-class C++ development experience through an IDE that scales to the large size of code bases that are typical of C++ sources.