Although Microsoft's Visual Studio 2008 software development platform is part of a February 2008 multiproduct launch, the company intends to ship it by the end of 2007, said S. "Soma" Somasegar, corporate vice president of the Microsoft Developer Division, in his blog.

The company earlier this week announced that a launch event on February 27, 2008, would feature Visual Studio 2008, Windows Server 2008, and SQL Server 2008. This revelation, made at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Denver, came after Microsoft had said Visual Studio 2008 was targeted to ship later this year.

But Microsoft is still anticipating a 2007 release, Somasegar said.

"While we will be launching our products together in February, we are still aiming to release Visual Studio 2008 and .Net FX (.Net Framework) 3.5 by the end of this year based on your feedback so far," Somaseger said.

A Microsoft representative elaborated on the plan.

"It is Microsoft's desire to ship Visual Studio 2008 by the end of this calendar year (although, as always, customer feedback ultimately determines when a product is ready to ship)," the representative said in an e-mail. "The February launch event is more of an opportunity to show customers, partners, and the community the wave of innovation Microsoft is delivering with all three products represented (i.e. Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008, and Visual Studio 2008)."Â

Formerly code-named Orcas, Visual Studio 2008 has been geared to development of Web applications, as well as for Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office system. A second beta release of Visual Studio 2008 has been expected for later this summer.

At the conference, Microsoft also announced that its Software Licensing and Protection Services products are due in the October time frame. The product suite features tools to help developers, including ISVs, protect intellectual property, build and license product versions, track product and feature usage, and integrate into back-end processes, Microsoft said.

Featuring the Secured Dimensions technology that Microsoft acquired in January, the suite includes:

* Code Protector SDK, a software development toolkit for protecting and transforming managed or .Net code; developers can mark features as licensable entities.

* Software Licensing and Protection Server, enabling ISVs to host their own servers and create licenses for products.

* SLP Online Server, for partners to conduct license management without hosting their own servers.