Visual Studio 2008 Is Imminent

Microsoft has signed off on Visual Studio 2008 and is expected to release it early next week—on Nov. 19, sources said.

Earlier this month Microsoft committed to ship Visual Studio 2008, formerly code-named Orcas, by the end of November. The company is making good on that commitment and is expected to have Visual Studio RTM (release to manufacturing) on Nov. 19, according to sources and Microsoft blogs. The tool-set will be available on the MSDN (Microsoft Developer Network).

According to the MSDN Subscriptions WebLog, an ongoing blog run by the managers of the online and offline MSDN Subscription program, the release of the software is imminent. “Visual Studio 2008 is anticipated out early next week, with availability for subscribers,” the MSDN blog said in a late-night post on Nov. 16. “Check out the Top Subscriber Downloads area on http://msdn2.microsoft.com/subscriptions for VS 2008 downloads.”

Visual Studio 2008 and the .Net Framework 3.5 enable developers at all levels to rapidly create connected applications for Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, the 2007 Microsoft Office system, mobile devices and the Web.

Microsofts Visual Studio Team System is also expected to ship by the end of November.

In a blog post from Nov. 7, Jeff Beehler, Team System chief of staff, said: “Were very close to shipping Team System 2008 and expect to make it available by the end of this month. This will include all of the team editions (Development, Database, Test, Architect, Suite) as well as the Load Test Agent and of course Team Foundation Server.”

Check out eWEEK.coms for the latest news, reviews and analysis in programming environments and developer tools.