As expected, on May 20, Microsoft made the Beta 1 bits of its Visual Studio 2010 release downloable by anyone interested in testing Microsoft's forthcoming release of its developer tool suite.
Microsoft released the Beta 1 VS 2010 bits on Monday, May 18, to TechNet and MSDN subscribers. Both MSDN/TechNet subscribers and the public are able to test VS 2010 Professional, Team Suite, Team Foundation Server and the .Net Framework 4.
A list of what's new in the 2010 release is on Microsoft's MSDN Web site, including everything from the inclusion in the box of the new F# concurrent programming language, to parallel development techologies, to better support for Silverlight and the Windows Presentation Foundation. And a handy list of related VS 2010 resources is available here.
Company officials have not provided a target ship date for the final VS 2010 suite, but a number of company watchers (including me) think it will ship before the end of calendar 2009.