Download Free Visual Studio LightSwitch 2011 RTM Trial

Microsoft has finalized a tool designed to simplify the development of business applications and the first downloads are already live.

For the time being however, the full Visual Studio LightSwitch 2011 RTM  can be downloaded only by MSDN subscribers.

And although the general availability deadline is still a couple of days away, all customers can head over to the Microsoft Download Center and grab the free trial of Studio LightSwitch 2011 RTM.

“Visual Studio LightSwitch is the newest edition of the Visual Studio family and is the simplest way to build business applications for the desktop and the cloud,” revealed a member of the LightSwitch Team.

“For the end-user developer this means you can quickly create professional quality business applications with minimal code. For the professional developer you can customize LightSwitch with your own code, controls and even build extensions that can add more capabilities than what you get out of the box.”

The free Visual Studio LightSwitch 2011 RTM trial release is designed to offer users a taste of the new development solution for business apps for no less than 30 days.

According to Microsoft, the initial month-long trial period can be extended up to 90 days, but customers will be required to register the software.

LightSwitch 2011 will only hit general availability on July 28th, 2011, at which point it will be available for sale via the Microsoft Store. Resellers will also provide LightSwitch to customers starting on August 1, 2011.

“For those of you unfamiliar with it, it starts with the premise that most business applications consist of data and the screens that users interact with. LightSwitch simplifies attaching to data with data source wizards or creating data tables with table designers,” explained Jason Zander, Corporate Vice President, Visual Studio.

“It also includes screen templates for common tasks so you can create clean interfaces for your applications without being a designer. Basic applications can be written without a line of code. However, you can add custom code that is specific to your business problem without having to worry about setting up classes and methods.”

Visual Studio LightSwitch 2011 RTM is offered as a standalone edition of Visual Studio, and as such will install and run on its own.

However, customers leveraging Visual Studio 2010 will need to upgrade to Service Pack 1 (SP1) if they want to integrate Visual Studio LightSwitch 2011 RTM with their existing VS installation.

UPDATE: A single Visual Studio LightSwitch 2011 lincese will cost $299.

Visual Studio LightSwitch 2011 RTM Trial is available for download here.