Visual Studio 2010 provides a wealth of improvements to help simplify the development process—from design to deployment. It’s not only easy to personalize to suit the way you work, but now includes integrated support for a growing number of platforms, including SharePoint and cloud applications, as well as a host of new features and functionality. If you’re using VS today, you'll notice that VS2010 introduces a simplified product lineup to help streamline purchasing decisions and better align VS with other Microsoft products you use daily (e.g., Windows and Office).
VS2010 has been consolidated into three main products, each of which comes with an MSDN subscription: VS2010 Ultimate, which replaces VS Team Suite 2008, ensures your team has all the necessary tools for application lifecycle management (ALM); VS2010 Premium, which replaces the VS Team System role-based products, ensures you have all the tools needed to create scalable, high-quality applications when working as part of a development team; and VS Professional remains the core tool for individual developers’ day-to-day tasks. Retail and free Express versions of VS also will be available for students and hobbyists.
Here’s an overview of the new VS product family and a look at some of the new features available. For more information about which version is right for you, to try Beta 2, or to learn how you can transition from VS2008 and receive a product upgrade, visit www.microsoft.com/visualstudio.
- VS2010 Ultimate with MSDN brings all those involved in the development lifecycle together, and is designed to help teams deliver quality results from the design phase to application deployment. Developers giving early feedback on the VS2010 beta have said they like the new prototyping tools in Microsoft Expression Blend SketchFlow, the new architecture and modeling support, and the integration between the developers and testers with IntelliTrace. This functionality allows development teams to target an increasing number of platforms and technologies, including cloud and parallel computing. Developers also now have access to advanced collaboration, integrated testing, and new debugging features. VS2010 Ultimate MSDN is a comprehensive suite of ALM tools for development teams.
- VS2010 Premium with MSDN is for developers and development teams that need a complete toolset to deliver scalable, high-quality applications. Developers writing code, building databases, testing, or debugging will find a set of features and tools that increase individual and team productivity by helping people build on their existing skills and projects. New tools for managing database integration, source code, and testing help ensure your systems are in sync and let you find and fix bugs quickly and easily. New tools and templates for developing customized SharePoint applications help make building collaboration applications a primary role within VS, giving developers an enhanced overall experience and capabilities.
- VS2010 Professional with MSDN is the essential tool for individual developers performing core development tasks. If you build on one of the many Microsoft platforms, you can now implement ideas more easily with new features and capabilities that simplify the creation, debugging, and deployment of applications. With a more personalized experience, you can unleash creativity with powerful design surfaces for Windows Presentation Foundation, Microsoft Silverlight, and AJAX/JavaScript. Integrated support for test-driven development and new debugging tools let you find and fix bugs quickly and easily to ensure high-quality solutions.
With MSDN subscriptions now included with the purchase of VS2010 Ultimate, Premium, or Professional you get greater support and access to high-quality resources. In addition to a comprehensive set of resources and access to Microsoft software and tools, subscribers also now have added benefits, including Windows Azure platform usage, Team Foundation Server licenses, and free Microsoft eLearning.
