Microsoft builds up toolset
The giant is throwing everything but the kitchen sink into its upcoming Visual Studio 6.0 development tool package.
The company today said the toolset has been sent into manufacturing and disclosed further packaging details for the Enterprise Edition of the tool bundle, expected to ship on September 2.
The good news? The bundle will include a good deal of Microsoft's server-side technology, such as its Internet Information Server 4.0, Transaction Server 2.0, and Message Queue Server 1.0. Microsoft said the intent is to give developers a complete set of server and client tools for building applications.
However, the company's Visual J++ 6.0 tool will not be ready in time for shipment in September, Greg Leake, a Microsoft product manager, said in an email message.
Instead, Microsoft will include a coupon in the Visual Studio Enterprise Edition box good for a copy of the tool when it ships. Leake estimated that will happen within weeks after Visual Studio itself ships.
The bundle also will include a development and test version of SQL Server 6.5 and SNA Server 4.0. SNA Server provides connectivity to the non-Microsoft world, including IBM's DB/2 and AS/400 databases and Oracle's database server.
A second voucher included with Visual Studio will entitle purchasers to all future service packs for the bundle, free of charge, as well as a development and test license for the upcoming BackOffice 4.5 bundle.
As previously reported, the reworked Visual Studio bundle for the first time works with business application software from SAP and
Visual Studio includes Microsoft's Visual Basic, Visual J++, Visual InterDev, Visual FoxPro, and Visual C++.