Microsoft is set to release the first beta of its long-awaited Visual Studio 2010 tools suite next week.
The firm will first release the beta to its developer customers on Monday, followed by general release to the public on Wednesday, according to a blog posting by Microsoft developer tools solution specialist Jihad Dannawi.

On 18 May Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 (Professional, Suite and Team Foundation Server) will be available to MSDN subscribers through MSDN Subscriber Downloads and to the general public on 20 May through Microsoft Downloads.

When it was announced to much fanfare last September, Microsoft explained that the new version of its flagship developer platform would try to democratise the application lifecycle by allowing all contributors on a software project to participate throughout the lifecycle.

The arrival of Windows 7 should put the final nail in the coffin for Windows Vista, one of the most disappointing products in software maker Microsoft’s recent history.

That’s the opinion of researchers at IT consulting group Gartner, who are advising corporate customers who haven’t already made the leap from Windows XP to Vista to forgo the latter entirely.

“Microsoft expects to ship Windows 7 in time for the 2009 holiday shopping season. Organizations with a Windows Vista project well underway should stay the course, but most others should target Windows 7,” wrote Gartner researchers Michael Silver and Stephanie Kleynhans, in a report released this week.

The researchers said Windows 7 holds a number of useful features for business users. BranchCache allows workers in remote offices to tap information from headquarters more quickly and easily by caching that content on local networks. Another feature, AppLocker, gives IT managers control of which applications users can run. Read the rest of this entry »

Microsoft will make Windows 7 available to businesses and consumers in time for the busy
holiday shopping season in the fourth quarter of the year, according to company officials.

Windows Server 2008 R2, the server companion to the windows 7 operating system, also will be available at the same time. Microsoft unveiled the information to journalists just ahead of its keynote at its annual conference.

Microsoft also said it plans to release a technical preview of the next version of its other key software product, Office 2010, in July to all attendees of the conference.

Nice time ahead for new releases.

Eighteen months ago, Mozilla introduced an experimental project called Prism with the goal to “to bridge the divide in the user experience between web applications and desktop apps and to explore new usability models as the line between traditional desktop and new web applications continues to blur.”

Excited features for many real-world applications currently using Prism:

* New API functionality for allowing Prism-enabled web sites more desktop like power.
* Ability to set fonts, proxy settings and other application-specific settings.
* The ability to clear private data on demand.
* Applications are automatically updated when new Prism versions are available.
* Tray icon support, as well as submenus for dock and system tray menus.
* Full OS X 10.4 support, and further OS X specific enhancement.
* Support for SSL exceptions.

You can find out more about Prism 1.0 beta and download the standalone version and Firefox extension from our new Prism website at prism.mozilla.com.