Microsoft News Tracker

Yesterday Microsoft announced the availability of Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4:

Kicking off a global launch consisting of more than 150 developer-focused events, Microsoft Corp. announced the general availability of Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4. The company also announced that Silverlight 4 will release to Web (RTW) later in the week. Together, these technologies simplify the entire development process, enabling developers to target new platforms and build high-quality applications. Developers will be able to download Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 in conjunction with the Microsoft Visual Studio Conference & Expo launch event in Las Vegas.

So what’s new in VS2010? Microsoft Developer Division Senior Vice President, S. Somasegar calls out the following:

• Visual Studio 2010 allows users target of the right platform for their application, including Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, SQL Server 2008, SharePoint. Office, Windows Azure, and Windows Phone 7 applications using their existing skills.
• Visual Studio 2010 is a rich, personalized development environment. We know that software developers spend much of their time in the IDE, and features like the new editor and multi-monitor support make your time in Visual Studio more productive and enjoyable.
• Teams are able to work more efficiently using Application Lifecycle Management tools. We’ve done a great deal of work in Visual Studio 2010 to improve testing and debugging tools. Features like IntelliTrace and easy project management help your team ensure high quality.

To my mind the biggies are the full support of all the Windows 7 features and the enhanced support for Sharepoint which is a surprise hit as a business development platform. More details are available at the Visual Studio 2010 Web site.