Microsoft Visual Studio Orcas: Maybe in 2007, maybe not

Microsoft is back to hedging about when the company will deliver the final version of "Orcas," the next release of its Visual Studio tool suite.

Last year, the Softies were quietly floating a 2007/2008 delivery date for Orcas. Then, in February 2007, Scott Guthrie, the general manager of Microsoft's Developer Division, blogged that Orcas would ship in 2007, after all. This week, Microsoft is back to wavering.

Microsoft is planning to deliver a non-feature-complete Beta 1 of Orcas in April, Soma Somasegar, the Corporate Vice President in charge of Microsoft's Developer Division, said during an interview on April 16. Microsoft expects to ship another beta of the product later this year. The final may or may not make it out in calendar 2007, Somasegar said.

Microsoft plans to position Orcas as the best, general-purpose tool set for developing for the Web, Windows Vista, Office 2007 and Longhorn Server, he said. Orcas will include version 3.5 of the .Net Framework.

At the same time as it is working on Orcas, Microsoft is working on Rosario, the next version of Visual Studio Team Server. Rosario will include new testing functionality and integration with Microsoft System Center and Project Server and its portfolio management tools, company officials said.

In about another month, Microsoft will begin its post-Orcas Visual Studio planning, Somasegar said. Microsoft officials have used the code name "Hawaii" to refer to its generalized plans for development tools after the Orcas/Rosario releases. But Hawaii is not the code name for a future release of Visual Studio, Somasegar reiterated this week.