Visual Studio 2005 Is So Ready to Rock

by Alex Woodie

Programmers don't have a lot in common with rock stars, but it didn't matter Monday, as Microsoft tried its best to make it cool to be a .NET programmer. With the rock band "Cheap Trick" cranking out the chords during the "Ready to Rock the Launch" event at San Francisco's Moscone Center, Microsoft finally unveiled its latest set of tools for making tech gods out of geeks.

With the new SQL Server 2005 database grabbing most of the spotlight during the Monday launch (see "No Job Too Big for SQL Server 2005, Ballmer Boasts"), it would be easy to overlook the new development environment Microsoft has put together in Visual Studio 2005. (The launch event also included BizTalk Server 2006, but this product is still in beta, and not expected to be available until the first half of 2006.)

While SQL Server 2005 provides the underlying foundation for storing and accessing data in applications, Visual Studio 2005 provides the tools for writing the business logic driving those applications, creating interfaces, and testing and deploying new programs. The two products were developed hand in hand, and are deeply integrated. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer--who is notoriously fond of developers--acknowledged the importance of Microsoft's development environment during his keynote Monday when he called it "the anchor tenant, the mission critical tool that you live in every day."

With Visual Studio 2005, Microsoft has taken solid steps to make it easier to develop and deploy Windows applications. Perhaps most importantly, Microsoft introduced a new high-end version of the product called the Team System that makes it easier for programmers, testers, and architects to collaborate on a project. The Visual Studio Team System expands the reach of the development tools beyond programmers to also include role-based tools for project managers, software testers, infrastructure and software architects, and IT business decision-makers, according to Microsoft.

Visual Studio brings other enhancements, including a new "design surface" for visualizing applications designed as part of a service-oriented architecture. This capability integrates with BizTalk Server 2006, and will enable developers to get a much more tightly integrated view of their data sources. "Up to now, visualizing these kinds of applications has been pretty difficult, but now with Visual Studio 2005 it's just a matter of drag, drop, and connect," says Prashant Sridharan, group product manager of Visual Studio, during Monday's event.

Another example of the deep level of integration Microsoft has built into its products is the new SQL Server Business Intelligence Studio that's built inside of Visual Studio 2005. "This enables me to use a powerful data cleansing utility to ensure the integrity of my data, even if they come from a variety of different sources," Sridharan said.

Security is another area of focus for Microsoft with Visual Studio 2005. With this release, Microsoft says developers will be able to detect security flaws at design time. "Everything we've learned about how to go through a source code and find potential security vulnerabilities we're putting in Visual Studio to put it in front of you so you, too, can write more and more secure code," Ballmer said.

Overall, the new development environment will reduce by up to 70 percent the amount of code users need to write for applications, Sridharan said.

Visual Studio 2005 is available now. Organizations that want to get into team development have the option of purchasing the Visual Studio 2005 Team Suite for $10,939 (or $3,499 to upgrade). Depending on roles--such as architect, developer, or tester--licenses for individual versions of the Visual Studio team system are also available for $5,469 (or $2,299 to upgrade). Other team components are also available, like the Visual Studio 2005 Team Test Load Agent ($5,089) and the Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server ($2,799).

Individual environments are also available. Visual Studio 2005 Standard Edition costs $299 ($199 to upgrade), while the Professional Edition costs $799 ($549 to upgrade). Go to www.msdn.com for more information.