Microsoft Delivers Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5

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Microsoft Delivers Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 to Developers

REDMOND, Wash. – November 19, 2007 – The wait is over! Today, Microsoft announced Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 have been released to manufacturing (RTM). With more than 250 new features, Visual Studio 2008 includes significant enhancements in every edition, including Visual Studio Express and Visual Studio Team System. Developers of all levels – from hobbyists to enterprise development teams – now have a consistent, secure and reliable solution for developing applications for the latest platforms: the Web, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, the 2007 Office system, and beyond.

Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 were both highlighted prominently at the recent TechEd Developers and DevConnections events and met with overwhelming enthusiasm by the developer community. What caught their attention? Keep reading for an overview of all of the new features and capabilities in Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 that developers can take advantage of immediately, as well as links to additional resources.

Language Integrated Query (LINQ) closes the gap between programming objects and data, and lets developers focus on what they need the data to do rather than how to access the data.

Click here for more information on LINQ

Cool links

Factsheets:

Visual Studio 2008 Product Guide

Visual Studio 2008 Top 10 Reasons to Upgrade

.NET Framework 3.5 Fact Sheet

Press Pass Feature:

Q&A with S. “Soma” Somasegar

Channel 9 Video:

Conversation with Soma:

Visual Studio 2008 and beyond

Microsoft Blogs:

S. “Soma” Somasegar

Steve Guggenheimer

Scott Guthrie

Dino Chiesa

Visual Studio Team System includes support for managing application builds, including running scheduled builds and continuous integration builds. Team Build runs builds with integrated support for static code analysis and build verification tests.

Click here for more information on

Visual Studio Team System

Web development gets even easier with new support for Web server communication techniques for AJAX/JSON-enabled Web sites. New ASP.NET controls allow for better page management and templates, and Windows Communication Foundation delivers native support for RSS and REST.

Click here for more information on ASP.NET

The .NET Framework 3.5 also delivers several new features, including powerful capabilities for Web 2.0, Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Software + Services-based applications:

Workflow enabled services provide a new programming model classes that simplifies building workflow-enabled services by using Windows Communication Foundation and Windows Workflow Foundation. This allows .NET Framework developers to build business logic for a service using WF and expose messaging from that service using WCF.

Additional Web services protocol support in Windows Communication Foundation, including Web Services Atomic Transaction (WS-AtomicTransaction) 1.1, WS-ReliableMessaging 1.1, WS-SecureConversation, and Web Services Coordination (WS-Coordination) 1.1.

IDC industry analyst Melinda Ballou, Program Director, Application Life Cycle Management and IT Management Service, talks to the importance of application lifecycle management (ALM) for customers; “Global businesses demand software creation that encompasses emerging Web 2.0 environments, web services, workflow, information query and other areas for distributed development and deployment. Improved and integrated development and ALM tools that enable support across these areas with quality, change management, design along with effective process and organizational strategies are increasingly critical to IT and business success.”

Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 are core components of the Microsoft application platform, a set of integrated capabilities, tools and infrastructure that enables organizations to build more dynamic, connected applications and ultimately deliver better business value. These releases are also an important milestone on the road to the Global Launch of Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008, on February 27, 2008.

But don’t just listen to us…here’s what others are saying!

“Thanks to the tools in Visual Studio Team System, we cut 20 percent off the time to develop the Castle audit solution—compared with what it would have taken with Visual Studio 2005—and included capabilities that we couldn’t have added any other way. For example, without Visual Studio 2008, we would have had to program the [2007 Office system] ribbon feature ourselves. With Visual Studio 2008, we just dragged and dropped the controls and wrote the events behind them.”

--Roman Benko, Associate Director,

Systems Development, CME Group

“Visual Studio 2008 accelerates our development of solutions on Microsoft software, and allows us to more fully and easily take advantage of its strength as an application platform. New features such as LINQ, AJAX support, JavaScript-compatible IntelliSense and debugging, and C# language enhancements are making individual developer at MethodFactory at least 40 percent more productive.”

--Jonathan Carter, Technical Lead, Method Factory

For additional information, please contact Elise Peterson at elisep@waggeneredstrom.com

or our Rapid Response Team at rrt@waggeneredstrom.com, 503-443-7070