Microsoft Readies Visual Studio .Net 2003, 'Whitehorse' Code

The upgrade, code-named Everett, was officially named Visual Studio .Net 2003 last week. It is expected to ship in the same time frame as Windows .Net Server 2003, now due in April, the company said.

Visual Studio. Net 2003 is expected to be touted at the VSLive developer's conference, to be held Feb. 9-14 in San Francisco. A future version, code-named Whidbey, is due in 2004.

Visual Studio .Net 2003 is slated to include enterprise features useful for corporate developers, including support for mobile devices and enterprise databases.

"Everett has some great 'fit and finish' additions, including ADO.Net providers for Oracle [databases and ODBC [-compliant devices, as well as the final version of the compact framework, so .Net developers can create applications for Pocket PC and other Windows CE platforms," said Andrew Brust, president of Progressive Systems Consulting, New York.

The Visual Studio .Net 2003 Professional Edition features an enterprise instrumentation framework (EIF) for monitoring and troubleshooting distributed applications, Microsoft's Web Services Development Kit and enhanced Enterprise Templates.

The two higher-end Visual Studio .Net editions will offer additional enterprise features. Visual Studio .Net 2003 Enterprise Developer adds team collaboration features, simplified application deployment and links to Oracle and ODBC-compliant databases. The highest-end offering, Visual Studio .Net 2003 Enterprise Architect, will enable developers to use Microsoft's Visio-based Unified Modeling Language (UML) modeling and database modeling.

While some observers say Visual Studio. Net 2003 lacks the robust modeling, testing and change-management features most enterprise companies require, others believe Microsoft will continue to rely on third-party alliances rather than try to outbid IBM for Rational Software or gobble up Borland to fill the gaps.

Microsoft plans to offer a new design tool and framework, code-named Whitehorse, in the Whidbey release that will be similar to Rational's modeling tools, sources said. "Both [Rational and Whitehorse are using an abstract model or visual process to assemble an application, but there's a much tighter coupling to Visual Studio and the .Net framework for Whitehorse," said one developer. "With Whitehorse, Microsoft will introduce the art of modeling and visual assembly to a host of new developers that are used to the 'design-build' process of Visual Studio."

Neither Borland nor Rational would comment on the rumored acquisition talks with Microsoft.