New tool aids .Net developers in writing Linux, Mac OS X apps

Not all .Net developers are writing Windows apps. Some (besides Miguel de Icaza and his merry band of Mono folks) may be interested in writing Linux, Unix and Mac OS X apps, too.

On November 10, Novell rolled out the final version of a new Visual Studio add-on aimed at these developers. Known as Mono Tools for Visual Studio, the product comes in three flavors: A Professional Edition (individual) for $99; Enterprise Edition (for one developer in an organization) for $249; and Ultimate Edition for $2,499 which includes a limited commercial license to redistribute Mono on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X and includes five enterprise developer licenses.

Mono Tools for Visual Studio allows developers to port their existing .Net Windows apps to non-Windows operating systems, as well as to write brand-new apps. The new product is based on Mono -- which is an open-source implementation of .Net -- but doesn't require it.  Novell has been testing externally Mono Tools for Visual Studio since September.

The goal of Mono Tools for Visual Studio is to make it easier for programmers to use Visual Studio's testing, debugging and deployment features, which may be more familiar to some developers than the open-source-specific tool alternatives, said de Icaza, Mono project founder and Vice President of Developer Platforms at Novell.

The new Mono Visual Studio Tools also enables integration with SuSE Online, a tool for building and testing turnkey virtual appliances that are based on SuSE Linux Enterprise Server or openSuSE.

Yesterday, Microsoft announced some tool-interoperability news of its own; the Redmondians are buying Teamprise and plan to make it an add-on to Visual Studio. The Teamprise add-on is designed to allow Java developers using Eclipse-based development environments to collaborate with .Net developers via Team Foundation Server.