Microsoft’s IDC Developer Tools Group celebrates Whidbey Launch

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Here is an article that was published in the IDC Samachaar, the monthly newsletter of Microsoft’s India Development Center regarding the IDC Developer Tools Contribution to the product.

Here Comes Whidbey

The world of software development is poised to take a big leap ahead. Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 a.k.a. Whidbey had its worldwide release on Nov 7, 2005. This is one of the most significant releases in the history of the Developer Division and the Dev Tools team at IDC has played a major role in realizing this milestone.

Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, here is an excerpt from Soma's blogs about what users can expect from Whidbey - “… Visual Studio 2005 enables” what I call “personalized productivity”. Visual Studio 2005 offers a host of productivity improvements that will ease the development of Windows, Web, Office, and mobile solutions while reaching out to a wider variety of roles and skill-sets. The Visual Studio Express Editions, for example, will enable hobbyists, enthusiasts, and students to learn how to program and code for fun. In addition, Visual Studio Team System expands the Visual Studio product line with software lifecycle tools that enable teams to communicate and collaborate more effectively throughout the software development process…”.

In terms of accomplishments achieved by the IDC Dev Tools, the Visual J# team was a loner at IDC while starting the Whidbey journey. And by the time we ship, we now own and execute many more exciting products at the Dev Tools Group:

• Java Language Conversion Assistant (JLCA) tool was completely transitioned to IDC. With this, the J# and JLCA teams combined hands to form the Java Migration Team - one team to help Java customers gain from the synergy created and migrate more efficiently to .NET Framework starting with Visual Studio 2005.

• Visual Studio for Team System's (VSTS) Build Automation and Converter Components project started at IDC. Though we were late to catch onto the Whidbey train, the Burton team at IDC has left no leaves unturned and made sure that we helped ship a quality Visual Studio Team Foundation Server's (TFS) Beta3 in time. We look ahead to the TFS release in early 2006.

• Mobile Web Services (MWS) initiative was started at IDC and is independent of the Visual Studio release. The vision of the MWS initiative is to enable the delivery of new and prevalent commercial telecom services to the existing base of Internet connected Window's PCs.

• The latest addition to our family is the Visual Studio for Devices (VSD) product which recently completed transition to IDC - VSD aims to deliver the Visual Studio developer experience to develop applications for Pocket PC, Smartphone, and other Windows CE based devices and would ship as a part of Visual Studio 2005.

With a product cycle of around 38 months, the amount of effort that has gone in to ship Whidbey has been tremendous. With new additions to the product line up at Dev Tools, team members have done a commendable job of working in multiple groups, and have helped setting up the new project teams during this timeframe in different phases and roles. The product teams and the entire division is very excited to have reached this milestone.

Dev Tools Director, Paramesh Vaidyanathan says “It's been 3 long years and I cannot express in words how proud I am of our team work. It's been a truly amazing journey”.

Whidbey Shipped … Bring on "Orcas"