(San Francisco) -- Microsoft Corp. chief software architect Bill Gates launched Visual Studio .NET and the .NET Framework, the application development tool and platform for .NET applications, at the VSLive! 2002 Conference in San Francisco, on Feb. 13, 2002. In a keynote address and worldwide webcast, Gates kicked off launch events around the world and hailed the two products as key to the development experience that will drive XML Web services. Visual Studio .NET and the .NET Framework are the cornerstones of .NET and represent a major milestone in bringing Microsoft's vision of XML Web services to reality.

"Visual Studio .NET and the .NET Framework are among the most important products ever released by Microsoft and underscore our long-term commitment to developer success," Gates said. "As the first fully integrated development environment for building XML Web services and next-generation Internet applications, Visual Studio .NET and the .NET Framework will enable the next big wave of developer opportunity, creating XML Web services that will soon become the basis for all major new software development."

The official launch of Visual Studio .NET and the .NET Framework is the final step in delivering Microsoft's new integrated development environment. The launch culminates with events in 150 cities worldwide. More than 3.5 million copies of Visual Studio .NET and the .NET Framework were distributed during beta testing. Since their availability in January to MSDN developer program subscribers, more than 350,000 customers have received the final version of these products.

. NET's influence is growing. To date, 250,000 developers have received training through more than 200 courses on .NET. More than 200 books on .NET for developers are now available, and 190 add-on tools are launching simultaneously with Visual Studio .NET. In the past six months, the number of MSDN user groups has grown to 764, an increase of 30 percent. The MSDN Academic Alliance includes 1,500 computer science department members at 815 institutions, reaching 1,500 faculty and more than 200,000 students. A new .NET international user group association has been formed: the International .NET Association (INETA) of User Groups. As a charter sponsor of INETA, Microsoft will provide training support for the INETA Speakers Bureau in providing content to its members.

Gates' keynote also highlighted news that Microsoft released new Web services toolkits for BizTalk™ Server 2002 and SQL Server™ 2000 for integrating with Visual Studio .NET. The BizTalk Server Toolkit for Microsoft .NET will provide additional support for orchestrating XML Web services through its integration with Visual Studio .NET. The SQL Server 2000 Web Services Toolkit will enable developers to easily use Visual Studio .NET to extend the capabilities of applications built on SQL Server 2000.

In his keynote address, Gates highlighted several of the more than 1,000 new customer deployments on .NET, including those from Autodesk Inc., L'Oreal and Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. These new customers have already experienced productivity gains and improved application development cycles using the .NET Framework and Visual Studio .NET to create and deploy XML Web services.

Autodesk, the world's leading design and digital content creation resource for more than 4 million customers, has built a new application development platform for the rapid creation of design visualization applications on the Microsoft .NET Platform.

L'Oreal, a leader in beauty with brands including Lancôme, Giorgio Armani, Garnier, Maybelline, Ralph Lauren and Redken, built a new e-commerce system in just four months to flexibly integrate with its partners worldwide.

Merrill Lynch, one of the leading financial management and advisory companies, consolidated all of its 800-number lines serving more than 25 million customers into one master telephone service, improving maintenance, fault tolerance, and performance.

Gates also announced three new partners that will provide developer tools products integrated with Visual Studio .NET: Computer Associates International Inc., Groove Networks Inc. and IBM Corp. Groove Networks joined the ranks of 70 other Visual Studio .NET Integration Program (VSIP) members, including Rational Software, Compuware and Crystal Decisions. In addition, Gates highlighted the fact that IBM's DB2 database software will be enabled for Visual Studio .NET.

Two prominent application development companies announced their tools for the .NET Framework. Borland Software Corp. announced that Delphi and C++Builder would target the .NET Framework, and Macromedia Inc. announced that Dreamweaver UltraDev would target ASP.NET. These new tools demonstrate the continuing momentum and openness of the .NET development platform.

Microsoft also announced the Microsoft .NET Component Builder Program, providing component vendors with resources to effectively build and market components using the latest Microsoft .NET technologies. The program will be jointly run by Microsoft and the Component Vendor Consortium, a nonprofit organization representing third party ISVs and a recognized authority on component quality. More information on the Microsoft .NET Component Builder Program is available by sending e-mail to netcp@microsoft.com.

Visual Studio .NET and the .NET Framework make up Microsoft's first full IDE for building XML Web services and next-generation Internet applications on the .NET Platform. Visual Studio .NET is Microsoft's rapid application development (RAD) tool, enabling developers to create and deploy broad-reach Web applications for any device and any platform. More information about Visual Studio .NET can be found at http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/. The .NET Framework provides the programming model of the .NET Platform, making it possible to deploy and run XML Web services and other types of applications, including client-, server- and service-based applications. More information on the .NET Framework can be found at http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/default.asp.