Visual Studio 2005, the latest version of Microsoft's
.net development environment, is released this week, but without a
much-anticipated component, which will not ship until
2006.
The product offers users a software development system for
building PC, internet-based and mobile Windows applications. The
Premium Edition includes new versions of SQL Server Developer
Edition, Visual Basic, C#, J# and C++ programming languages, 64-bit
tools, Visio and Office Suite development tools and a subscription
to the Microsoft Developer Network.
But Microsoft will not be shipping Team Foundation Server, a
server component required to use Visual Studio as a team
development environment.
John Allwright, Microsoft Visual Studio product manager, said
Team Foundation Server would not be available until the first
quarter of 2006. But he said, "Team Foundation Server is in its
beta 3 release and is of operational quality." Those who use this
beta of the software will be supported and can migrate onto the
finished product when it becomes available, he said.
IT departments are increasingly focusing on team development to
deliver high-quality software and to ensure code complies with
in-house standards.
Users do not have to rely solely on Microsoft to provide team
support. Supplier management services provider Achilles is using
Borland's team development tools. Rupert Gladstone, director of IT
at Achilles, said, "Our current project is to allow any developer
to work on our core product using the same quality processes."
This week the company has started running the Borland Starteam
development tool across four development sites.
HMV uses SQLServer 2005 for online music
downloads
HMV is one of the first UK users of SQL Server 2005, the latest
version of Microsoft's relational database, launched this week.
The retailer is using the database to power its music download
site, HMV Digital. Development work took place at Microsoft's UK
head office in Thames Valley Park in January.
David Cameron, head of software development at HMV, said, "The
server environment has been designed to be easily scaled without
redesign."
The application uses a mirrored configuration comprising 10 dual
Xeon-based servers each configured with 2Gbytes of memory and
36Gbytes of storage.
Cameron said HMV would be looking at other digital initiatives,
such as film and games.
One of the technical hurdles for HMV was how to link the
Microsoft technology with its IT infrastructure based on Java 2.0
Enterprise Edition and the DB2 relational database from IBM.
Cameron used Visual Studio 2005 with ASP.net and web services to
achieve this.