Microsoft plans to release the next version of the .net Framework,
codenamed Whidbey, by 2003, said a company spokesman.
The major release of the company's Web development framework is
expected to feature rapid application design for Web services,
based on work from the company's Global XML Web Services
Architecture toolkit team, according to a Microsoft
spokesman.
The .net Framework is Microsoft's tool set for building and
integrating XML Web services, Windows-based applications and Web
solutions.
"We're always working on new ways to improve the developer
experience, so you can expect that we'll be talking about this in
the future," the spokesman said.
Federated support to boost reliability of Web activities also is
planned, for use in Web servers or other links.
Other improvements planned include upgraded support for the Visual
Studio .net development environment, an improved ASP .net
programming model, and .net extensions for Visual Basic 6, Visual
C++ and Office developers.
An upgrade for the common language runtime (CLR) environment,
featuring just-in-time compilation and secure code extension, is
also planned.