We are getting closer and closer to the release of the next version of Visual Studio (codename "Orcas"). Most probably, we'll get our hands on Beta 1 sometimes before the American TechEd (held in Orlando, Florida). Beta 2 will ship probably by the end of the summer and the RTM sometimes before the end of the year. The new language and compiler improvements as well as the new sets of tools for developing software and services on platforms like Vista, Longhorn Server and Office 2007 will be among the "killer" features in the new Visual Studio.

In the mean time, the guys in Redmond are already starting to work on version-next-of-version-next ( :) ) of Visual Studio with the codename "Rosario". The pillars of this version (due to ship one year after Orcas) will be app lifecycle management, testing tools and quality assurance.

The folks I usually talk about development tools agree that there is still a lot to improve and I agree with them. With the momentum that .NET Framework is gaining as a platform, expectations are getting to higher and higher levels which puts a lot of pressure on the Visual Studio team @ Microsoft. From what I know so far, I can tell that most of those expectations will be addressed by Orcas. My personal opinion is that the pressure of expectations will be much higher on "Rosario" (at that moment, platforms like WPF, WF, WCF, SharePoint 2007, Vista, and Longhorn Server will start to approach maturity). This is probably the reason why Microsoft started to work on version-next-of-version-next of Visual Studio with more than one year before the release of version-next.

The slide deck for my "Excel Spreadsheets in the BI Services World" talk is available here. In the archive you will also find the source code for the demos and also a document I am currently working on  that describes all the steps you need to perform in order to redeliver the demo (due to many requests I received for explanations of the demos, I decided to put in writing all the details, but please take into consideration that it is still a document under development :))

The slides and the demo code are the ones I recently delivered at TechDays 2007 in Zurich (they are based on the original version I prepared for TechEd Developers 2006 in Barcelona).

With the launch of the public Microsoft Regional Directors site, Microsoft's program enters a new era. You can now access in one place all the cool information provided by the RDs. Take a look at www.microsoftregionaldirectors.com.