Microsoft .Net: It lives!

Microsoft has officially launched its new .Net developer toolkit VisualStudio .Net, and dubbed the software the ultimate programmer's toolset.

The product aims to give developers the ability to quickly build web services applications for Micrsoft's .Net platform.

Having invested more in the toolkit than Nasa invested putting a man on the moon, Microsoft hopes VisualStudio .Net will finally make the Microsoft web services vision a reality.

However, at a high-profile launch at London's Natural History Museum, Microsoft said VisualStudio .Net was not just about web services, it was also about reducing the time it takes to write applications.

Gavin King, developer tools product manager at Microsoft, said: "This will enable greater developer productivity than ever before, with programs easier to write and easier to deploy.

"The web services standards - XML, WSDL, SOAP and UDDI - have been built into the tool itself, making the development of web services applications native to the toolkit."

Microsoft's launch was backed up by a number of early adopters and beta testers who have already been building services based on the software. Microsoft even boasted how the Bank of New York had decided to migrate to .Net from a Java environment - .Net's key competitor - because of advantages in the VisualStudio .Net development platform.

Another customer, UK retailer Marks and Spencer, said it had given them huge benefits. Jerry Boersman said: "It's like developing with the power of C++ in the timescale of Visual Basic. We've never worked with anything so powerful."

VisualStudio .Net is available now in three editions - Professional, for individual developers; Enterprise Developer, for larger scale applications, and Enterprise Architect for senior software architects.