Visual Studio 2005 et le .Net Framework 2.0 RTM !

"I am very proud to announce that this morning we shipped Visual Studio 2005 and the .NET Framework 2.0!

This is truly a momentous occasion for our customers around the world and for us. This is clearly the most productive, most secure, and most reliable enterprise ready platform and tools ever released from the Developer Division.  

Later today, MSDN subscribers around the globe will be able to download and install any one of the retail versions of the Visual Studio family of products from the MSDN subscription site. In addition, we are releasing the 32 and 64bit versions of the .NET Framework 2.0 and the .NET Framework SDK to the Microsoft download center for immediate public consumption. On November 7th, in conjunction with the world wide Launch events, we will make the Express Editions of Visual Basic, Visual C#, Visual C++, Visual Web Developer, Visual J#, and SQL Server Express publicly available on the Microsoft download center. Inside Microsoft, you can install Visual Studio 2005 from here.

Visual Basic developers will love Edit and Continue, the My Classes, and the wide array of new features for client development in Windows Forms. Visual C# developers will instantly be more productive with refactoring, generics, and numerous new debugging capabilities. Visual C++ developers will have seamless access to the full power of the Common Language Runtime and .NET Framework, advanced browsing, editing and debugging, numerous security enhancements and the best performance ever. Web Development has never been faster or easier with Master Pages, Personalization, Web Parts, and declarative data access to databases and business objects. Office application development is taken to a whole new level with Excel and Word designers, Outlook support, and the integration of Windows Forms controls. Developing applications for the devices is now truly a 1st class citizen in Visual Studio. The Visual Studio development environment enables both individual productivity and team productivity. Simply amazing!

Enterprise customers are already jumping to the Visual Studio Team System product line which provides tools to support Architects, Developers, Testers and Project Managers. With visual designers for enterprise systems, load and unit testing tools and the performance analysis tools used internally at Microsoft, we are enabling teams to successfully and predictably build and deploy mission critical solutions on the .NET Framework. With the just shipped final beta of Team Foundation Server and its final release early next year, we will deliver a truly integrated, collaborative platform for the entire software development lifecycle.

The .NET Framework, Common Language Runtime, and ASP.NET have the highest stress and scalability rates we’ve ever achieved. With the .NET Compact Framework, native 64bit support on the server, built in database caching in ASP.NET and managed stored procedures in SQL Server 2005 we are delivering the preeminent multi-tier application development platform in the industry.  

We took transparency with the community to a whole new level and provided customers with unparalleled access to our vision, processes, builds, struggles, defects, and successes. We delivered Community Technology Previews every 6-8 weeks and got valuable feedback from our customers through the MSDN Product Feedback Center. We had 24 early adopter (TAP) customers and a number of internal customers deploying in their production environment the Release Candidates of Whidbey and Yukon and they all signed off on the product release. To our customer community I say, “Thank you, for helping us build and deliver great products”.  

Thank you for the dedication and the commitment to build the right products for our customers. You’ve done a tremendous job and I am proud to be a part of this team. Today you’ve changed the world, be proud of it! Onto a fantastic launch of Visual Studio 2005, SQL Server 2005 and BizTalk Server 2006 on November 7th and subsequent launch events around the world."

- somasegar