By Greg DeMichillie [bio]
Posted: Dec. 17, 2007                             Purchase a copy of this report

The following an excerpt of a Research Report published by Directions on Microsoft, an independent research firm focused exclusively on Microsoft strategy & technology. More samples of our content, as well as a list of upcoming articles and reports are also available.

Free! Executive Summary

The latest versions of the .NET Framework and Visual Studio simplify coding of data queries; add support for new features introduced in Vista, Office 2007, and .NET Framework 3.0; and further improve Visual Studio as a Web development tool

Free! Introduction

The myriad of improvements in Visual Studio 2008 and the accompanying release of the .NET Framework 3.5 should have a measurable impact on programmer productivity

LINQ Leads .NET Framework 3.5

Language Integrated Query makes querying data such as relational databases substantially easier; updates to the Windows Communication Foundation make it easier to build Web services based on the REST architecture

Improving Productivity and Catching Up with .NET

With Visual Studio 2008, Microsoft's developer tools are catching up to the version of the .NET Framework that shipped with Windows Vista in Dec. 2006

Tools for Office Updated

Visual Studio 2008 clarifies the roadmap for Office-based development and brings the toolset up-to-date with Office 2007

Web Development in Visual Studio 2008

Better support for Cascading Style Sheets, along with better JavaScript support, highlights new Web development features in Visual Studio 2008

Future Directions

Visual Studio 2008 is the latest stop on the developer tool roadmap, but important updates are coming in 2008 and beyond

Resources

Links and pointers to additional information about Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5

Appendix: Visual Studio 2008 Pricing

Chart summarizes volume prizing for Visual Studio 2008