Neowin.net

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced a few new developer tools but otherwise played a greatest-hits set before an audience of about 10,000 information technology professionals at the TechEd conference here Monday.

Delivering the opening keynote address at the software giant's annual conference for developers, network administrators and other in-the-trenches IT folks, Ballmer made only brief mention of Longhorn, the next version of Windows. Instead, he focused on new tools intended to make life easier for the IT set. Those include Visual Studio 2005 Team System, a planned addition to the company Visual Studio line of developer tools.

Team System will focus on managing application development projects and making it easier to blend the results into corporate IT systems. The package, intended for delivery with the main Visual Studio 2005 release in the first half of next year, will include modeling tools for representing back-end systems and managing how a new application fits into the environment. Ballmer said the package will help developers, managers, testers and IT administrators work together more efficiently and that it's emblematic of Microsoft's new "do more with less" theme.

News source: C|Net News.com

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