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Final Beta Available for Visual Studio .NET 2003

The final beta of Microsoft's Visual Studio .NET 2003 is available, and the development toolset, formerly code-named "Everett," will ship in April along with Windows .NET Server 2003.

Visual Studio .NET 2003 is an incremental release. The primary benefits of Visual Studio .NET 2003 will be a 1.1 version of the .NET Framework, the gathering of mobility-related development technologies that have trickled out since the Visual Studio .NET 2002 release and tight integration with Windows .NET Server 2003, which also will include the updated .NET Framework. In the Visual Studio .NET 2002/Windows 2000 generation, the .NET Framework has to be loaded separately onto the operating system.

"Our 2003 wave of products provides a consistent programming model for applications from devices to datacenter servers, enabling developers to focus on solving their unique business problems," Eric Rudder, senior vice president for Microsoft's Developer and Platform Evangelism Division, said in a statement.

Specific upgrades in Visual Studio .NET 2003 are the inclusion of the gold code for the .NET Compact Framework for smart devices, enhancements to Visual C++ .NET and Visual C# .NET and new tools for building applications using Web services specifications such as WS-Security, WS-Routing and WS-Attachments.

Regular pricing for Visual Studio .NET 2003 hasn't been announced, although Microsoft is announcing a promotional $29 upgrade for registered users of Visual Studio .NET 2002.

About the Author

Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.