Visual Studio .Net 2003 Release Candidate Available For Download

The suite, which spans the spectrum of supported devices from PCs to mobile devices, will be offered as a $29 upgrade to non-MSDN users.

Chief among the enhancements Microsoft has been touting are an enterprise instrumentation framework that promises to offer automatic performance monitoring. Also, C++ developers will now be able to take advantage of the Windows Form Designer, said Dan Hay, lead product manager. The suite also now integrates support for Microsoft's J# language.

General availability will coincide with broad shipment of Windows .Net Server 2003 next April, Microsoft executives said here at Comdex.

Perhaps most important to developers is the fact that the .Net framework will now be embedded in the server operating system, meaning that developers will have near-automatic support in the infrastructure, industry observers said.