Microsoft has opened up its “Everett” Visual Studio.Net
Framework SDK for public testing after adding support for developing
applications for mobile devices and improved connections to the Windows.Net
Server.
In an e-mail to beta testers, Microsoft said an upsurge in user demand for
the upgraded .N
ET Framework 1.1 SDK Beta led to the decision to convert the program
into a public beta. The “Everett” SDK can be downloaded here.
The software giant said the BetaPlace downloads, information pages and
private newsgroups would close on November 10.
The .NET Framework SDK, a key component in Microsoft’s Web Services
roadmap, has been revamped to include a Java development tool called
Visual J#, Visual Basic.Net, Visual C++.Net and Visual C#.Net tools.
The biggest addition, which developers had been expecting, is the native
support for building mobile Web applications. Microsoft said the ASP.NET
Mobile Controls (formerly Mobile Internet Toolkit) now extend ASP.NET server
controls to adapt to the mobile device on which the Web application is
rendering.
Through browser detection, the mobile controls conform to the capabilities
of individual devices PDA browsers to the smaller cell phone displays.
Developers expect the new rendering feature to handle much of the
device-specific rendering decisions.
The upgraded “Everett” has also been fitted with support for side-by-side
execution in the .NET Framework 1.1 Beta to allow system admins to store and
execute multiple versions of an application or component on the same
computer.
“This means that you can have multiple versions of the .NET Framework
Redistributable, as well as multiple versions of applications and components
that use a version of the Redistributable, on the same computer at the same
time,” Microsoft said.
The .NET Framework 1.1 rollout also supports the update to IP version 6
(IPv6) protocal and improvements in the areas of scalability and
performance, Microsoft said.
