Microsoft SQL Server Director Tom Rizzo said VS 2005 beta 2 and the new SQL Server 2005 CTP mean both products have entered the final stages of their development cycles.
Microsoft moved closer to significant releases of its development and database environments, both slated to appear before the end of 2005.
Officials from the Redmond, Wash., software power announced the second beta of Visual Studio 2005, .NET Framework 2.0 beta 2, and the April Community Technology Preview (CTP) of SQL Server 2005.
Users will increasingly see future VS 2005 and SQL Server 2005 tied together, highlighting Microsoft’s commitment to tying application development to back-end infrastructure.
SQL Server 2005 reached its beta 2 last summer. VS Studio beta 2 gives developers the opportunity to poke and prod the latest code bits and features in the forthcoming development environment.
The April CTP of SQL Server 2005 is the company’s fourth “mini beta” of
sorts. The new code includes all of the features that are slated to appear in the finished product and can be used with VS Studio beta 2.
Customers such as Barnes & Noble, Summit Partners and Townsend Analytics, are running the SQL Server 2005 in production. Townsend is actually running both VS Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005, leveraging the integration between both products.
Rizzo also said there will be no more betas of SQL Server 2005. Instead, any future releases will come under the CTP heading to help customers better absorb the myriad changes in the evolving bits of code.
“Customers have told us they like the CTP model a lot better than the beta model at this point in the development process,” Rizzo said. “We need to get out more frequent drops of code bits to customers and partners to test so we can finalize the product.”
In related news, Microsoft will provide another addition to the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 beta 2 end user license agreement (EULA).
Called the GoLive! license, this will facilitate the deployment of ASP.NET Web applications, as well as a license for Windows Forms, Visual Studio Tools For Office-based applications, and .NET Compact Framework applications supporting current and future Windows Mobile-based devices.
Microsoft Bares Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2
