Microsoft said on Thursday that it would delay by "a few weeks" the launch of its Visual Studio 2010 developer tool suite and version 4.0 of the .Net Framework.
In a blog posting, developer division head S. Somasegar said the company needs more time as it continues to work on some performance issues.
Microsoft had planned to launch the product in March. The company now plans an added test version--a release candidate--to launch in February, with the final version coming a few weeks after the planned March launch.
"Since the goal of the release candidate is to get more feedback from you, the team will need some time to react to that feedback before creating the final release build," Somasegar said. "We are therefore moving the launch of Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4 back a few weeks."
Among the features in Visual Studio 2010 is a TiVo-like recording capability, dubbed IntelliTrace. Other features new to the 2010 release include support for Windows 7 and Windows Azure as well as tools for building on top of Microsoft's Sharepoint product.
Microsoft is set to announce on Monday that it is ready with a second beta version of its Visual Studio 2010 and .Net Framework 4.0 developer tools. Both products are set for a final release on March 22, Microsoft said.
"Microsoft has reached the home stretch for Visual Studio 2010," said Dave Mendlen, a senior director in Microsoft's developer division. "This is probably the biggest release we've had in many years."
Among the product's features is a Tivo-like recording feature that Microsoft has now dubbed "IntelliTrace."
"That's our time machine," Mendlen said. "We're very proud of that."
Other features new to the 2010 release include support for Windows 7 and Windows Azure as well as tools for building on top of Microsoft's Sharepoint product.
With Visual Studio 2010, Microsoft is also taking the opportunity to scale back the number of different versions it sells, cutting the number of subscription options from seven to three. In a telephone interview, Microsoft Vice President S. "Soma" Somasegar said that move came from customer requests.
They told us "one place you can do better is making it simpler how you package your products," Somasegar said.
Under the new plan, myriad Visual Studio options will be consolidated into Professional, Premium, and Ultimate. Microsoft is planning an "ultimate offer" promotion that will give many current subscribers access to the next-higher version of Visual Studio as well as 750 Windows Azure compute hours per month. Next year, the company plans to change that to offer varying amounts of Azure compute time based on the level of the Visual Studio subscription.
Updated 9:56 a.m. PDT: Added screen shot and a link to Microsoft's Visual Studio 2010 page.
Airplanes are equipped with recorders that capture both cockpit audio and flight data, so in the event that something goes wrong, investigators can try to determine the source of the problem.
Microsoft is aiming to give software developers the same kind of access. In the next version of its developer tool suite, to be known as Visual Studio 2010, Microsoft plans to include the ability to record the full screens of what testers are seeing, as well as data about their machine. When a test application crashes, the technology will enable developers to see the bug as it occurred.
In an interview last week, Microsoft Developer Division Director Dave Mendlen said the feature is designed to avoid the all-too-frequent conflict that occurs when a software tester finds a bug that the developer says it can't reproduce. Internally, the feature has been called "TiVo for debuggers."
Visual Studio Team System 2010 will offer tools for managing test cases and execution, and will boost support for filing actionable bugs.
(Credit: Microsoft)
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