Last week, Microsoft officially launched Visual Studio 2005, SQL Server 2005 and BizTalk Server 2006 (although the latter isn't really out yet -- they are launched together because, once BTS 2006 will be ready, the three systems form a very compelling and well-integrated platform together). I was at the launch event in my native Belgium on Thursday, in the honored presence of none other than S. "Soma" Somasegar, Vice President of Microsoft and responsible for the Development Division ("Dev Div"), and some of his "crew".
Most of us have already worked, or played, with the beta and CTP bits of Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005, so we already know what great environments these are. Now that the RTM bits are out, I'm sure more companies will feel at ease to ship their .NET 2.0-based products or to start development. So if you're reading this and you're still doubting whether or not to switch to .NET 2.0/SQL Server 2005 already: go ahead and make the jump now! You'll love it. If you're not sure, try it out first -- either by downloading the free Visual C# Express, Visual Basic.NET Express, Visual Web Developer Express, Visual C++ Express, Visual J# Express or SQL Server 2005 Express right now or by visiting the Visual Studio 2005 Hosted Experience, which is a web-based tool for remotely trying out Visual Studio 2005 without any cost, downloading or installation effort on your part. There's no excuse for staying away now!
Of course, the Visual Studio 2005 team is already looking at the future. Until March, they'll be spending time in support mode and will be performing internal reviews so as to improve their development processes even further for the next version, code-named "Orcas". Soma and his team were kind enough to talk to a number of influential architects and consultants during the launch event in Belgium, and stated that Orcas will definitely contain more testing and architecture tools. For instance, the team is currently evaluating what they can include to automate testing of user interfaces. Other areas of focus are improvement of the ease of developing multitier applications, further extending the languages, etc. As Soma and his team are also looking into shortening the release cycle. This may mean that Orcas will become Visual Studio 2007 some day... Looking forward to it already? You bet!