By late 2003, Microsoft plans to release the next version of the .Net Framework, code-named Whidbey, a company spokesman confirmed yesterday.
The major release of the company's Web development framework is expected to feature rapid application design for Web services, based on work from the company's Global XML Web Services Architecture toolkit team, according to a Microsoft spokesman.
The .Net Framework is Microsoft's tool set for building and integrating XML Web services, Windows-based applications, and Web solutions.
"We're always working on new ways to improve the developer experience, so you can expect that we'll be talking about this in the future," the spokesman said.
Federated support to boost reliability of Web activities is also planned, for use in Web servers or other links.
Other improvements planned include upgraded support for the Visual Studio .Net development environment, an improved ASP .Net programming model, and .Net extensions for Visual Basic 6, Visual C++ and Office developers, the Microsoft spokesman confirmed.
An upgrade for the CLR (common language runtime) environment, featuring just-in-time compilation and secure code extension, is also planned, the spokesman confirmed.
