Microsoft announced that Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 are both scheduled to drop by the end of November. Microsoft TechEd Developers 2007 in Barcelona, Spain was the stage where S. "Soma" Somasegar, corporate vice president of the Developer Division revealed that the company is committed to making both Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 available by December. Microsoft emphasized that the combination of the two technologies provides a fertile cocktail for developers enabling them to focus on Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, formerly codenamed Longhorn, the office 2007 System, as well as the Internet.

"The highly social and visual nature of the Web has fundamentally changed what users expect from all applications they interact with, regardless of whether it's on a customer-facing Web site or Windows rich client application, or a desktop business application built using Microsoft Office," said Somasegar. "Traditionally, organizations have been hard pressed to deliver the richer, more connected applications and services they need to boost productivity, drive revenue and stay ahead of the competition. With Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5, it is easy for developers to use the skills they already have to build compelling applications that take advantage of the latest platforms."

Microsoft also delivered the first Community technology preview of its new synchronization platform, Sync Framework along with the evolution of Popfly Explorer. According to Somasegar, Microsoft will sweeten the deal for Visual Studio partners, and the new set of resources is the first step in this direction. In this context, the Redmond company will increase its investments in the Visual Studio partner ecosystem. One initiative in this sense is the fact that Microsoft has virtually freed-up Visual Studio.

"In response to partner feedback and in order to provide better support for interoperability with other developer tools and cross-platform scenarios, Microsoft is today announcing plans to change licensing terms, no longer limiting partners to building solutions on top of Visual Studio for Windows and other Microsoft platforms only. This licensing change will be effective for the release of Visual Studio 2008 and the Visual Studio 2008 SDK", the Redmond company stated.