Software giant Microsoft launched Visual J#.Net, its latest offering on the .Net framework at the Tech-Ed 2002 event held recently in Europe. Debi Mishra, product unit manager of Visual J#.Net says that the product was completely developed in its India Development Centre (IDC).

The project to develop VJ#.Net commenced mid-1998 with a small team of four, headed by Mishra, who was relocated to the IDC from Redmond. By the end of the year, the team had rounded up 14 engineers and is presently 40-strong. The entire life cycle of the product, from concept to research activity on the specifications to actual development of the product, was executed at the IDC.

Mishra says the product carries strategic importance in that it marks the completion and availability of all the Microsoft programming languages within Visual Studio.Net, including Visual C++.Net, Visual C#.Net and Visual Basic.Net. Each of these products is available both independently and as part of Visual Studio.Net.

According to Mishra, the new product provides an easy transition for Java language developers into the world of extensible mark-up language (XML) Web services and can dramatically improve the interoperability of Java language programmes with existing software written on a variety of other programming languages. In fact, the .Net framework itself is a no-friction, cross language programming platform. Mishra notes that most business houses are adopting XML-based Web services since this service provides them with a new way to employ the Internet as a development platform and enables them to seamlessly interoperate across disparate systems and platforms.

Visual J#.Net will help Java language programmers extend their Java programming skills to embrace the capabilities offered by other programming languages on the .Net framework without having to learn the other programming language. Mishra, in fact, sees the product as a mere tool to help Java language programmers migrate to the latest .Net framework. A recent private survey showed that almost 25 percent of developers in the world were Java language programmers.

While software companies around the world are spending huge amounts in developing new applications/products to capture market share, Microsoft’s strategy to develop a framework that helps developers of other programming languages seems to have begun to pay off. Leading IT giants and independent software vendors, including Compaq, Accenture, Arthur Andersen, Autodesk, American Electric and Buy.com have taken up huge projects to develop applications based on the .Net framework. The .Net framework provides support for over 20 programming languages. Dassault Systems, which recently migrated large Java-based applications onto the .Net platform, is one of Microsoft’s biggest customers for Visual J#.Net.

Microsoft had earlier launched a tool (also developed by the IDC) called the Java User Migration Path (JUMP) to .Net, to help migrate applications written in Java programming language onto the .Net platform.