Smartphone Thoughts: Developers, The Wait for Visual Studio 2008 is Over

"On Monday, Nov. 19, Microsoft announced that Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 were released to manufacturing (RTM). With more than 250 new features,Visual Studio 2008 includes significant enhancements in every edition, including Visual Studio Express and Visual Studio Team System. Developers of all levels – from hobbyists to enterprise development teams – now have a consistent, secure and reliable solution for developing applications for the latest platforms: the Web, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, the 2007 Office system, and beyond."

If you are a developer or a hobbyist programmer then you need to head over to MSDN to download Visual Studio 2008. Trial editions are also available for download. One thing I like the most about VS2008 is that the Windows Mobile 5.0 SDK and older mobile SDKs are now part of VS install. In the past I had to spend a lot of time figuring out what all components I need to install to start mobile development; now everything is integrated. That said, I must mention that Windows Mobile 6 SDK is not included and must be installed after VS2008 if you want to work with it. The one thing I don't like is that VS2008 still does not have a free Express edition for hobbyist mobile developers. I am surprised that Microsoft is not taking a proactive approach to the threat from Google's Android project. For more information on the features for mobile developers, check the Windows Mobile Team Blog post here.