Think Visual
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For some reason, Visual Studio 2008 reminds me of a 1980s Kinks album. |
The Kink's "Think Visual" isn't by any means an exceptional album, but track "Lost and Found" captures some interesting sentiments appropriate to Visual Studio 2008. The song is about a hurricane coming to New York City.
From the lyrics:
"This thing is bigger than the both of us
It's gonna put us in our place
We were lost and found, just in time
Now we've got no time to waste"
Visual Studio 2008 is Microsoft's hurricane for developers. The software and .NET Framework 3.5 anchor Microsoft's broader integration strategy. Visual Studio 2008 is the first of the company's major development tools for extending the vertical stack from the server to the desktop to the Web. Sure, Web development is old school to Visual Studio, but Live development is new and a big deal.
Visual Studio 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 released to manufacturing today, and Microsoft immediately made both products available. The company posted Visual Studio 2008 for download by Microsoft Developer Network subscribers. .NET Framework 3.5 is available for download, but pretty much to anyone.
The releases give Microsoft some good news entering 2008. Visual Studio 2008 is scheduled to launch in late February with SQL Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008, but the other products are delayed. The timing has other significance: Preparation for release of the other two products and support for software plus services, with Live benefited none the least.
Microsoft's integration strategy—what executives once called "Integrated Innovation"—is wrapped around .NET Framework as core. But there are several different integration points with respect to Microsoft's plans:
- .NET Framework
- Visual Studio
- Silverlight
- SharePoint Server
- Office System
Live 2.0 and Microsoft's forthcoming services platform also belong on the list.
During Microsoft's annual shareholders meeting last week, Chairman Bill Gates made clear the importance of Web services. "We want to have all of our software available in both a service form and a server form to give our customers flexibility," he said. "We want to allow them to have the richness they have today in terms of integration and administrative control, and yet be able to run the software in either location in their data center, or in the cloud."
The point: Use of the word "all." Microsoft plans to make all its software, at least on the server, available in hosted versions. Visual Studio is very much part of the strategy, as Microsoft pushes forward its software plus services strategy.
Totally unrelated request: Can Microsoft Korea please bring back to Visual Studio Team System rap song? It disappeared ahead of Visual Studio 2008's launch. The song was clever and the best kind of viral marketing—even for the rest of the world that doesn't speak Korean.
Related Posts:
- Visual Studio Gets Its Date, Microsoft Watch, Nov. 5, 2007
- Microsoft Makes Way for Oslo, Microsoft Watch, Oct. 30, 2007
- Microsoft's .NET Poison Pill?, Microsoft Watch, Oct. 3, 2007
- Windows Server 2008 Delayed, Again, Microsoft Watch, Aug. 29, 2007
- Can Microsoft be the Wrench in Google Gears?, Microsoft Watch, June 6, 2007
- Digital Media Bundling 2.0, Microsoft Watch, April 16, 2007
- What Is Microsoft's Services Platform, Microsoft Watch, March 1, 2007
- March Orcas CTP Shows Some Expression?, Microsoft Watch, Feb. 28, 2007
Comments (2)
I love that record. ROCK N ROLL CITAY'S, WATCH OUT, HERE WE COME!!
Posted by Jess Cliffe | November 21, 2007 5:32 AM
"Live development is new and a big deal..."
Why is that? This seems like more of an opinion than a fact.
The main point with VS 2008 is that it will continue to be mainly used by enterprises doing enterprise-level development. So the analysis of the new environment should, I believe, be focused on what MS has done to improve development in corporate dev teams.
Personally, I love VS 2008 and have been using it for production level apps for my mISV for more than 2 months now. Going between VS 2008 and 2005 is painful because of the productivity enhancements that have been added to 2008 (e.g., Improved Intellisense, automatic recommendation of Framework namespaces to be included, LINQ).
Since VS 2008 can easily target any of the .NET frameworks > 1.x, it makes it a no-brainer to migrate project solutions over to the new IDE just for the productivity benefits to the dev staff. That's the real story with this release.
I couldn't care less about Microsoft moving to SaaS, pushing Live Development, or any of the other "benefits" they're shoving down our throats. All I care about is cranking out quality code that will make me more productive and ultimately more profitable. That's the gauge of success.
Posted by Jason | November 21, 2007 9:14 AM