Microsoft to Release Visual Studio 2005 for Unix/Linux

In a stunning press release today, Microsoft officially announced that the upcoming Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 delays have been caused by a last minute push to port the tools and the .NET Framework to Unix. Supported technologies include Indigo, Avalon, and the long awaited Object Spaces ORM toolset.

"The code for Windows has been ready for manufacturing since late October of 2004, we've just been sitting on it waiting for the Unix teams to catch up" -- Anonymous Microsoft Official

After recent announcements that the latest version of Visual Studio .NET, code named Whidbey, would be delayed until late in the year the secret development project to implement .NET on Unix became impossible to contain.

"I first heard about it at a Seattle area Starbucks. I mean, I was just like sitting there drinking my Venti no-whip triple shot soy latte and I looked over at this dude sitting next to me who was working on a laptop and I saw something on his screen. So I said "Dude is that the new version of Eclipse?" and he said "No, it's Visual Studio 2005 Linux Edition". Then he typed a few lines of code and created an Indigo service that runs on the Apache web server. I was like "Dude!" and almost spilled my latte." -- Anonymous Seattle Youth

The implications of this announcement are fairly clear. With the introduction of a modern toolset for developing enterprise applications in both Windows and Unix, developers using Sun Microsystem's Java language and the various asundry open source tools that are bubble gum and paper clipped onto the JVM will have little choice but to switch to the more robust C# language in .NET. Most of them won't notice a difference.

"We still believe that Java is a strong language for development. However, we will no longer continue to build on that technology preferring instead to move developers to .NET." -- Anonymous Sun Representative

After hearing of Java's eventual demise many Java developers, including several Java certified consultants, began a petition to save what they called "Java Classic". This petition, much like the "VB Classic" petition went largely unnoticed.

"Our development efforts are on track for a delivery of Visual Studio 2005 and .NET 2.0 for Unix by the end of this year. We did have some delays as we tried to decide what the right configuration of useless open source products most accurately represents a true Linux implementation. But once we finally got Linux to install onto the developer's workstations with no errors, well the rest was down hill." -- Anonymous Microsoft Product Manager

When asked what the addition of the .NET Framework to Unix meant to the future of Windows, Microsoft officials remarked that Windows Longhorn, the next release of the Windows desktop operating system, will be built on a Unix kernel.

"We've seen evidence of how building on the Unix kernel has worked for Apple. Not for technical reasons mind you, but if Apple can get away with creating the most popular portable music player in the world that won't play anything but their own proprietary files without getting sued by the European Commission, it must mean they are doing something right." -- Anonymous Microsoft Blogger whose first name is Robert

Lastly, when asked to comment, Bill Gates Microsoft's Chief Technology Architect was heard to say "April Fools!!!!!!"

The Server Side