Microsoft has released its Visual Studio 2008 software development platform. Initially, it was available for download on MSDN to subscribers, but later on it was available on CDs for professional developers, teams and enthusiasts.

Tarun Gulati, General Manager, Developer Platform Evangelism, Microsoft India, says, “With “Microsoft Visual Studio 2008, organizations find it easier to capture and analyze information to make effective business decisions. Visual Studio 2008 comes packed with advanced development tools, debugging features, database functionality and innovative features for quickly creating cutting-edge applications across a variety of platforms. Visual Studio 2008 also includes enhancements such as visual designers for faster development with the .NET Framework 3.5, substantial improvements to Web development tools and language enhancements that speed development with all types of data.”

Visual Studio 2008 delivers key advances for developers in three primary pillars: 
1. Rapid Application Development – It delivers improved language and data features, such as Language Integrated Query (LINQ), that make it easier for individual programmers to build solutions that analyze and act on information. 
2. Effective Team Collaboration – Developers are offered new tools that speed up the creation of connected applications on the latest platforms including the Web, Windows Vista, Office 2007, SQL Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008. 
3. Breakthrough User Experiences – Visual Studio 2008 delivers expanded and improved offerings that help improve collaboration in development teams, including tools that help integrate database professionals and graphic designers into the development process.

Gulati adds, “Visual Studio is not only a leading suite of development tools for the industry, but it is also an open and extensible platform. Visual Studio supports a rich, diverse ecosystem of developers who ship thousands of Visual Studio-integrated products. Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 is an integrated Application Life-cycle Management (ALM) solution comprising of tools, processes, and guidance to help everyone on the team improve their skills and work more effectively together. Visual Studio Team System enables members to:

* Collaborate and communicate more effectively with other team members and business stakeholders. 
* Ensure software quality using advanced quality tools at every step of the application life cycle. 
* Gain visibility into project activity and priorities to make informed decisions based on real-time data.

Anil Rangappa, Senior Consultant, MindTree Ltd., says, “MindTree shares a healthy relationship with Microsoft which is almost a decade old. MindTree incubated in 1999 and since then, MindTree has been associated with Microsoft technologies. There are various projects which run on MS tools in MindTree. These projects essentially are for the client server and web applications. Initially, MindTree worked on VB/ASP, then moved over to COM and now we are mainly working on .NET platform, though we do execute project on older Microsoft technologies. We are extremely satisfied working on the .NET platform of Microsoft. We have been using VS08 and lately TFS also to develop applications for our customers. MindTree focusses on customers from various domains such as insurance, banking, manufacturing and travel. The applications developed by our developers cater to customers in the abovesaid verticals. Apart from custom development on .NET, at MindTree we execute projects on Microsoft products such as BizTalk, SharePoint, Office Business Applications, Silverlight, Microsoft Dynamics, Unified Communications and Commerce Server.”

Asked about the benefits of VS08/VSTS, Rangappa says that the most attractive feature of VS08/VSTS is collaboration for software development. While working on web-based projects, it is very essential that the developer tools collaborate with the project requirements. With VSTS/TFS, a project can be tracked and executed from the requirement stage to the deployment stage. VS08 enables to create the check in policy automatically and the developer time span is reduced largely. MindTree has significantly been able to reduce the team from 25 developers in a span of 6–8 months to 17–18 developers after the company deployed VSTS/TFS. This has been able to deliver MindTree a 10% increase in its productivity. These tools are built to ease the task of a developer. With the advent of such tools, most of the coding gets processed and this minimizes the developers’ task of writing the codes. This, in turn, increases the productivity of the developer and the completion time of the project is reduced.

It is surprising to know that MindTree has deployed applications for a number of customers and of these customers are Microsoft and Redmond. Anandhi Krishnan, Vice-President, .NET Practice, Polaris Software Lab, says, “Polaris has been a Microsoft“partner since 1997. Currently, we are a Gold Certified Partner of Microsoft. We are a System Integration Partner with Microsoft. We work along with Microsoft Sales for joint opportunities. We are also a vendor to Microsoft Consulting Services in India and the US. Polaris works with Visual Studio tools, VSS, VSTS and TFS in Microsoft Technology. Polaris works with Mercury tools, Rational Rose, Clear Case, PVCS, etc.”

In addition, feedback from our partners states that VSTS/TFS has been beneficial for project management, work items tracking, etc. Some of our Indian partners believe that the template- based estimation of the tool enables standardization and flexibility to apply different method without major manual work. Our partners have experienced the use of some of the key features of VS08 which were used to leverage the productivity of the projects undertaken by them. 
* VSTS helps to identify the requirements of each project and creates work items for them so that the project status remains transparent to the whole team. 
* VSTFS is easily integrated into any life cycle management tool so that the project plan is imparted into VSTFS task allocation and task update is done. 
* MSF agile template is used for the project so that the project remains updated on status. 
* The various out-of-the-box report is used to understand the progress of the project. 
* The configuration management of VSTFS is utilized which helps the developers in tracking work items. 
* The VS08 tools enables in efficient and seamless integration with all versions of the .NET framework and this increases the time efficiency of the developers, thus increasing their productivity. 
* VSTFS enables quick integration and this helps to increase the developer productivity greatly as the debugging process is reduced and the developer gets to spend less time in fixing the bugs towards the completion of his project. 

With Visual Studio Team System, organizations can reduce the complexity of delivering modern service-oriented solutions that are designed for operations, facilitate collaboration among all members of a software team (including architects, developers, testers and operations managers), speeding development time and ensuring the predictability and reliability of the development process and customize and extend the Team System with their own internal tools and processes or choose from over 450 supplemental products from over 190 partners.

Rangappa says, “Microsoft tools have been built in such a manner that they are extremely user- friendly and easy to learn. Be it VS08 or VSTS/TFS, these tools enable the developers to work in a more systematic and error-free manner. They are attuned to the developer mode of functionality and they help in making a developer’s life easy. For instance, VSTS reduces the time taken by a developer in the code review process. The tool is meant to identify the bugs in a code instantly and hence it helps the developer to improve efficiency over a comparatively less time taken. This helps in increasing the overall productivity of the project and hence profitability over time increases.”

According to Krishnan, Microsoft tools are very user-friendly, add to the developer’s productivity, easy of integration with different life cycle tools (Development, Configuration Management & Testing), it provides transparent project status and finally it provides an easy way to share knowledge across the team and leverage from the same. Giving an example of happy customers, Krishnan adds, “One of Polaris customers in Denmark named Ementor has deployed applications for the Danish Government. We have used Microsoft tools .NET framework 3.0, VSTS 2005, TFS 2005 to deliver this project. The customer is very happy and the feedback about the tools has been very good.”

Programmes for Developers and Partners… According to Gulati, Microsoft Partner Programme (MSPP) is very systematic and structured programme that helps partners across the business life cycle to ensure partners have the right set of resources at the right time to be successful. In fact, worldwide, over 300,000 partners enjoy the partnership and its benefits at various levels across the programme.

Some of the resources of MSPP include: 
1. An online training portal titled the “Partner Learning Centre”, designed exclusively for the members of the Microsoft Partner Programme, allows partners to choose from a wide variety of  online training, self-study resources, and more – all online. 
2. Further, we also provide a marketing and sales support. For example, partners at the highest level of partnership, which is the Gold Certified status, get maximum sales and marketing benefits.  
3. Technical support to Gold and Certified partners primarily through benefits like TPTS (Tele Pre-Sale Tech Specialist) and TSC (Technical Service Coordinator). These are pre- and post-sales support benefits the partners can use to drive their business around Microsoft technology.
4. Worldwide Partner conferences help partners delve deep into MS technology. 

By leveraging these readiness resources, partners achieve self-sufficiency over a period of time and demonstrate skills through successful customer wins and technology implementations. In fact, partners worldwide have voted MSPP among the top channel programmes. In addition, Microsoft also runs the Small Business Specialist programme, a unique initiative to create greater business opportunities for partners that specialize in providing solutions and services to the small business segment. Partners who enroll into the programme have access to training and resources specifically designed for them – including marketing materials and special promotional offers. Through this, the partners gain increased visibility via preferred placement in the Microsoft Resource Directory and the Small Business Partner Finder (located on the Microsoft Small Business Centre website). Additionally, the partner also gets access to the exclusive Small and Medium Business Specialist Private Managed Newsgroups.

Microsoft also has a variety of programmes for the budding developers. Some of these programmes such as the Ultimate Online Training Environment – With the Developer Virtual Classrooms, helps the developers enjoy the benefits of live human interaction from the comforts of their desktops. With the virtual classroom’s interactive functionality, participants can gain valuable knowledge quickly and easily through a combination of lectures and demonstrations presented by a technical expert and take online course evaluations. Based on an 80% correctness in the evaluation score, the developer also stands a chance to earn a certificate of participation from Microsoft.

Microsoft has always been committed to providing the best licensing solutions for its education customers. To capitalize on this opportunity, we have the Volume Licensing programme which is specifically designed for academic organizations to reduce their costs of acquiring, upgrading, maintaining and managing software for multiple computers, while in India Microsoft has an extensive network of 3,500 partners. Channel feedback has helped the company to improve its partnership deliverables each time. Gulati says, “We keep the partner at the core of the programme and tailor the programme to suit a variety of partners out there in the market like resellers, ISVs, solution providers, etc.”

Finally…
As per the IDC figures, the developer ecosystem in India has been increasing at an impressive rate and by 2011 India will see over 24 lakh developers as compared to over 20 lakh in China. Currently, India has over 14 lakh developers which are expected to grow to over 16 lakh by the end of 2008.