Microsoft had made an important announcement. The company announced its plans to open source the entire .NET framework to millions of developers across the globe. The .NET framework, which has been used as the programming model by developers to develop application for Windows operating systems for decades will also run on Linux and Apple’s Mac OS.
Microsoft is also rolling out a new version of Visual Studio, calling it Visual Studio Community 2013. This free developer platform with full capability will allow developers an easy access to Microsoft’s Visual Studio toolset to develop a variety of cross-platform applications for free.
S. Somasegar, corporate vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft, wrote at his blog,
“Today, we are taking the next big step for the Microsoft developer platform, opening up access to .NET and Visual Studio to an even broader set of developers by beginning the process of open-sourcing the full .NET server core stack and introducing a new free and fully-featured edition of Visual Studio. At the same time, we are releasing previews of the next generation of Visual Studio, .NET and Visual Studio Online”.
Visual Studio 2015 and .NET 2015: Any device, Any platform
Microsoft also announced the availability of the next version of Visual Studio, Visual Studi0 2015. Visual Studio 2015 Preview adds significant value including cross-platform development in C++, the new open-source .NET compiler platform, C++ 11 and C++ 14 support, Apache Cordova tooling, and ASP.NET 5. Visual Studio 2015 Preview makes it easier for developers to build applications and services for any device, on any platform.
As part of its new strategy, Microsoft also plans to start working with Xamarin-sponsored Mono project, to add Xamarin’s technology in its Visual Studio developer tool and would therefore be rolling out more of Microsoft and Xamarin products’ in the near future.
ASP.NET 5.0 : Building cloud connectivity
Microsoft also announced the preview of ASP.NET 5.0, a streamlined framework and runtime optimized for cloud and server workloads. In addition, the new Connected Services Manager in Visual Studio 2015 makes it easier to connect applications to line-of-business API services such as the Office 365 API and SalesForce, among others.
Microsoft’s online service for project developments, Visual Studio Online, has also added additional capabilities namely,
- Release Management as a service, available in preview, to enable customers to automate and manage application releases without the need to set up or maintain any service infrastructure.
- Cloud Deployment Projects, to allow organizations to more easily and reliably provision and configure development, test and production environments in Azure.
Completing the list of announcements, Microsoft announced the availability of Visual Studio 2013 Update 4, its 4th update of the year, which includes various productivity enhancements and additional capabilities.
