Microsoft is refreshing the beta release of its Visual
Studio 2005 developer tool platform to feature the full range of
technologies planned for the company's Team System application
lifecycle management system, Microsoft representatives
acknowledged.
Already available to subscribers on MSDN, Microsoft plans to
provide Visual Studio 2005 Beta refresh with the Team System to
developers at the VSLive conference next month and at other shows
as well.
"It is the first time customers will have been able to see the
whole Team System, and we are hoping to get a lot of feedback,"
said Prashant Sridharan, lead product manager for enterprise tools
at Microsoft.
He cautioned, however, that the product still is in beta release
and thus has issues with performance and stability.
Visual Studio 2005 Team System is to feature the four components
of Team System plus the Professional Edition of Visual Studio
2005.
Those four components include three client products, which are
Team Architect, for modeling; Team Developer Edition, for
performance and code analyses; and Team Test Edition, for load
testing.
A fourth component, for servers, is Team Foundation, which
offers source code control, item tracking, project management, and
integration with Microsoft Project and Word.
A previous beta of Visual Studio included only modeling
components from Team System. The general release of Visual Studio
Team System is expected to ship in the first half of 2005.
Microsoft with its application lifecycle platform expects to
compete against offerings such as the upcoming release of the
IBM.
Rational "Atlantic" tools platform and Borland Software's
CalibreRM application lifecycle management package. But Borland
will both compete with and work with Microsoft, Sridharan said.
Paul Krill writes for InfoWorld