Visual Studio 2010. Launch date March 22nd 2010!

Finally the cat is out of the bag - the next version of Visual Studio will be available Monday, 22nd of March 2010!  You don't have to wait until then to play with this new exciting release, Visual Studio Beta 2 bits are available on MSDN now!

At a glance, what's new?

1) New product names. Gone is the name 'Team System' and all 'Team Editions'.  Here are the new editions:

a) Visual Studio 2010 Professional with MSDN  (Entry level developer tool)

b) Visual Studio Test Elements 2010 with MSDN (Test Management and Manual Testing tools)

c) Visual Studio 2010 Premium with MSDN (Professional edition + all quality tools for Developers and DBA's)

d) Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN (Premium edition + all Architect and all Testing tools)

2) MSDN offers even more value.   Here is what's new:

a) one Team Foundation Server + one CAL for production use (i.e. all editions mentioned above include TFS!)

b) Microsoft Expression Studio 3 for production use

c) Windows Azure subscription allowance

d) Windows embedded O/S

e) Microsoft e-Learning allowance

f) Priority support in MSDN forums

3) New logo's:

a) Visual Studio

b) MSDN

If you have one of the current Visual Studio products there is a transition path - a very generous transition path I might add..... !  I outlined it in another blog post.