At the Comdex trade show in Las Vegas, Microsoft announcedit has shipped a new test version of software toolsin line with the company's new Internet software strategy.
The strategy is focused on making Microsoft's existing software available over the Web using traditional PCs and increasingly popular handheld devices such as cell phones and personal digital assistants. The company is attempting to entice software developers by creating tools for building Web-based software and services.
Microsoft on Monday shipped its first public test versionof the next release of its development tools, calledVisual Studio.Net. The package includes updates toprogramming languages Visual Basic, Visual C++, andthe first version of C#, a new tool announcedlast summer. C# (pronounced C-sharp) is a Java-like software programming language intended to simplify building Web services using Microsoft software.
Microsoft in July released atest version of the new tools to developers attendingits software developer conference in Orlando. The new,public test version is more complete than the previousversion, said David Lazar, Microsoft's group productmanager for .Net tools and services.
"We did a technology preview earlier, and this (newversion) is obviously a lot closer to the finalversion," Lazar said.
The new test version is available as a free downloadon Microsoft's MSDN developer Web site. The company expects to release the final version in 2001, probably in the second half of the year, Lazar said.
As part of Monday's announcement, Microsoft said it has also shipped a test version of its .NetFramework, which includes a new engine that will allowsoftware developers to use many types of programminglanguages to write Windows software.
The company also said it has formally submitted the C#language to an industry standards group, hoping tosucceed where rival and Java creator Sun Microsystemshas failed.
Microsoft chairman Bill Gates in his keynote speechSunday said the company formally submitted the newlanguage to an industry standards body called ECMA. The company in June had announced its plans to submit thetechnology to the standards body.
C# is similar to Java, a programming language that haslong been considered a threat to Microsoft. Java istouted by Sun, IBM, Oracle and dozens of others as thelanguage developers can use to write software that iscompatible with all types of computers and operatingsystems. Microsoft has in the past steered developersto write software that runs only on Windows.
Sun had hoped to turn Java over to the same standardsbody, but withdrew its proposal last year, fearingthat it would lose control of Java's evolution. Sunhas been gradually releasing its control over Java,and has been reforming theJava Community Process, a standardization process with rules set by Sun.
The test version of the Visual Studio suite will notinclude a development tool for Java. Microsoftpreviously sold a Java tool, called Visual J++, thatis part of its existing Visual Studio tools package.
Microsoft is mired in a lawsuit withSun over Java, which has prevented Microsoft fromupdating its Java products. Sun sued Microsoft threeyears ago, arguing that Microsoft built technologyinto its Java products that leads developers to buildJava software that only operates within Windows,defeating Sun's goal of writing software that can run on any operating system.