Microsoft has laid out a roadmap for its Visual Studio .net
application development platform in order to attract mobile
application and SQL Server developers.
A minor update to Visual Studio, codenamed Everett, which is due
out in the first quarter of 2003, promises to include a number of
enhancements for building robust mobile applications.
Mobile application development
Chris Flores, Microsoft
product manager for Visual Studio .net, said a key feature in the
new software is that it will allow developers to create offline
applications for handheld devices. The current version of Visual
Studio only supports online mobile applications where the software
connects via a wireless network to a back end system. He said the
new version of Visual Studio will allow developers to build
applications based on the .net Framework that will run without the
need for a wireless connection.
"We have a miniaturised version of the .net Framework that can
reside on small, smart devices such as Pocket PC systems or
embedded devices," Flores said. Microsoft also plans to bundle a
version of its Visual J# software with Visual Studio to enable Java
developers to migrate applications to the .net framework.
SQL Server support
Microsoft said the next major
release of Visual Studio, due out in 2004, would be closely
integrated with the next release of SQL Server, codenamed Yukon.
The big change in the tool is its support for programming SQL
Server. Database programmers currently have to write functions
called stored procedures for SQL Server in the database's own
programming language, SQL. With the new release of Visual Studio
Microsoft said developers will be able to program such stored
procedures in Visual Basic, C#, or C++.
To complete the three-year roadmap, Microsoft is planning a release
of Visual Studio .net to be tied to a future release of Windows due
in 2005, codenamed longhorn.