Microsoft on Thursday posted for download a public beta of the next version of its Visual FoxPro development tool.

The public beta of Visual FoxPro 9.0, code-named "Europa," is available on the Microsoft.com download site.

The new version will include a number of user-interface tweaks, as well as some incremental new features for developers, such as IntelliSense support.

The final version of FoxPro 9.0 is due to ship by year-end, according to information on the Visual FoxPro Developer Center site.

Microsoft isn't pushing Visual FoxPro outside of the product's existing user base. However, according to some estimates, there are still hundreds of thousands of FoxPro users.

Microsoft has pledged to continue to support the product through 2010.

Although Microsoft doesn't state it quite so bluntly, Visual FoxPro's foremost competitors are Visual Studio, Microsoft Access and SQL Server. That explains in large part why the Redmond software vendor isn't jumping through hoops for Visual FoxPro.

Microsoft acquired FoxPro for $173 million in a 1992 merger with Fox Software. But by the time Visual FoxPro 7.0 rolled around, Microsoft had decided to unbundle it from the rest of its Visual Studio suite.

Visual FoxPro can be used to produce Web services that can be consumed by .Net, and can consume .Net Web services itself. But Visual FoxPro — unlike Microsoft's other Visual tools — does not make use of the Common Language Runtime.

One Visual FoxPro developer, who requested anonymity, said that including the CLR in Visual FoxPro would destroy the product's unique value proposition, namely, its status as "an integrated development environment with powerful local data engine, interactive (and scriptable) design tools and small runtime."

(This is an updated version of an article which originally appeared in the March 8, 2004, issue of the Microsoft Watch newsletter.)