Microsoft makes Visual Studio 2008 more broadly available

Microsoft has made the latest version of its integrated tool suite available to volume licensees and retail customers as of January 29.

Microsoft released to manufacturing Visual Studio 2008 on November 19, 2007, and made it available at that time to Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) subscribers. Today, Microsoft announced additional availability of Visual Studio 2008. It is now on the January 2008 volume licensing price list (via Open, Select, Enterprise Agreement and Full Packaged Product licenses) in a posting to the US ISV Developer Evangelism Team blog.

The official corporate launch of Visual Studio 2008, codenamed Orcas -- along with Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 -- is scheduled for February 27, 2008, in Los Angeles. Windows Server 2008 is expected to be released to manufacturing in February, possibly as soon as next week, sources say. SQL Server 2008 recently slipped a quarter and is now expected to go to manufacturing in the third quarter of 2008.