Microsoft .Net RIA Services: Not until 2010
Microsoft officials provided this week a timetable for the rollout of .Net RIA (Rich Internet Application) Services, the technology codenamed "Alexandria."
.Net RIA Services is designed to allow coders to bring together the .Net programming model with Microsoft's Silverlight competitor to Adobe Flash. Microsoft made a Community Technology Preview (CTP) of the technology available in March, but didn't provide any final availability information.
On June 9, company officials rolled out the delivery timetable for .Net RIA Services via a blog post. The schedule:
- Another CTP test build (without a Go-Live license) is coming in July
- A beta is coming in November, timed with the Professional Developers Conference. This will add more support for Visual Studio 2010 and .Net 4.0
- Release to Web: "First part of 2010"
Speaking of Visual Studio 2010, Microsoft still hasn't provided a final due date for its forthcoming tool suite. For a while, it was sounding like, in spite of the name, VS 2010 would likely ship in late 2009. Microsoft fielded in May its first VS 2010 beta, which a number of testers I know think has a way to go before it's ready for prime time. So maybe VS 2010 will be a 2010 deliverable, after all....