LightSwitch beta ready to download

As announced earlier this month, LightSwitch Beta 1 was released yesterday, offering a simple, fast way to build applications for the desktop, web, and the cloud. This early look at the upcoming addition to the Visual Studio family allows you to build custom business apps with little or no development experience.

LightSwitch provides prewritten code and other reusable components to handle routine tasks and offers step-by-step guidance. But you can also use Visual Basic .NET or C# to write custom code.

Applications created with LightSwitch support exporting data to Microsoft Office Excel for sharing and reporting. You can also attach your application to existing data sources including Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft SQL Azure, SharePoint, Microsoft Office Access (post-Beta), and other third-party data sources.

Since this is an early beta, some of the features are subject to change based on ongoing development activities and customer feedback. Read the release notes for more information.

For the full rundown, including a helpful tutorial, read Jason Sanders blog.

Download LightSwitch Beta 1.

More to come,

Mitch

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