Microsoft Outlines Vision for Future of Visual Studio .NET And Microsoft .NET Framework

Microsoft Outlines Vision for Future of Visual Studio .NET And Microsoft .NET Framework "The next version of Microsoft developer platforms and tools will contain numerous enhancements that set a new standard for developer productivity, continue to deliver enterprise-grade scalability and performance, and enable businesses to develop a variety of solutions to meet their challenges. The "Whidbey" versions of Visual Studio .NET and the .NET Framework also will support the latest Web services specifications through Web Services Enhancements (WSE) for Microsoft .NET.
* Visual Studio .NET "Whidbey" will provide enhanced debugging, no-touch deployment and other features such as Edit and Continue, maintaining Microsoft's long-established tradition of placing a premium on developer productivity.
* The .NET Framework "Whidbey" will enable existing .NET Framework 1.1 customers to immediately take advantage of support for 64-bit CPUs, advances in security and administration, and improvements in performance and scalability -- without any source code changes.
* Windows® client application development capabilities will be enhanced in the "Whidbey" version of the .NET Framework. Developers will be able to develop more-sophisticated solutions using a broad palette of new data and user interface controls and take advantage of deployment enhancements that will make it simpler for applications to be installed and versioned.
* Web application development with ASP.NET will be improved with new controls for data access and visual appearance that reduce code in common scenarios by up to 70 percent, significantly improving performance of even the most demanding Web sites, and that provide enhancements for more-robust and secure Web services.
* Mobile application development for the .NET Compact Framework will be extended in Visual Studio .NET "Whidbey," enabling the creation of applications that run on the latest devices, including the Smartphone, Windows CE .NET 4.2-based devices and the newest versions of the Pocket PC.