Announcing the release of Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2, .NET FX 3.5 Beta 2, and Silverlight 1.0 RC

I am pleased to announce the release of Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2, .NET Framework 3.5 Beta 2, and Silverlight 1.0 RC.

You can download Visual Studio 2008 Beta 2 and the .NET Framework 3.5 Beta 2 from here. Over the next couple of days, we will make Silverlight 1.0 RC available for download as well.

The road to Beta 2 has been an exciting one for me and my team. With our focus on delivering frequent CTP’s, we really opened the door for real time feedback from the developer community, and drove the development of this product based on that feedback. With Beta 2 we are feature complete, so now is the time to have your first look if you haven’t seen Visual Studio 2008 yet, or evolve your experience if you have been using our Beta 1 or previous CTP’s. To add to this, we are also releasing a Go Live license for Visual Studio 2008, the .NET Framework 3.5, and Silverlight 1.0 to make it easier for you to start developing in our next generation of tools.

Developers can now use VS2008 and Silverlight 1.0 to build rich interactive applications for the web. With Silverlight 1.0 RC we will also be releasing a CTP for the Silverlight Add-In for Visual Studio 2008. With this add-in, developers can start building Silverlight 1.0 applications from within the Visual Studio 2008 environment and work with their designer counterparts using Expression Blend v2 preview. We expect to deliver the final version of this add-in soon after the final version of Visual Studio 2008.

Early this week Scott Guthrie and I recorded a Channel 9 video, which overviews these releases, and some of the new scenarios which we are seeing customers and partners using today. Make sure you check it out.

It has been a fun time building these great products and cool technologies and being able to bring those to you. With Silverlight 1.0, Visual Studio 2008, and the .NET Framework 3.5 all scheduled to release to manufacturing (RTM) prior to the end of the year – we are set up to have the best era of developer releases we have seen so far.

Namaste!