Jason Zander gives Sneak Preview of Visual Studio 11 and .NET Framework 4.5 Beta. I can’t wait for the bits!

Today we’re giving a “sneak peek” into the upcoming beta release
of Visual Studio 11 and .NET Framework 4.5. Soma has announced on his blog that the beta will be released on February
29^th! We look forward to seeing what you will build with the release,
and will be including a “Go Live” license with the beta, so that it can be used
in production environments.

Visual Studio 11 Beta features a clean, professional developer
experience. These improvements were brought about through a thoughtful reduction
of the user interface, and a simplification of common developer workflows. They
were also based upon insights gathered by our user experience research team. I
think you will find it both easier to discover and navigate code, as well as
search assets in this streamlined environment. For more information, please
visit the Visual Studio team
blog.

In preparation for the beta, today we’re also announcing the
Visual Studio 11 Beta product lineup, which will be available for download next
week. You can learn about these products on the Visual Studio product
website. One new addition you
will notice is Team Foundation Server Express Beta, which is free collaboration
software that we’re making available for small teams. Please see Brian Harry’s blog
for the complete announcement and
more details on this new product.

In the Visual Studio 11 release, we’re providing a
continuous flow of value, allowing teams to use agile processes, and gather
feedback early and often. Storyboarding and Feedback Manager enable development
teams to react rapidly to change, allowing stakeholder requirements to be
captured and traced throughout the entire delivery cycle. Visual Studio 11 also
introduces support for teams working together in the DevOps cycle. IntelliTrace
in production allows teams to debug issues that occur on production servers,
which is a key capability for software teams delivering
services.

I encourage you to view the presspass story with additional footage from today’s news
events, including a highlight video and product screenshots. Then stay tuned for
an in-depth overview of the release with the general availability announcement
on February 29^th.