Performance issues have prompted a postponement of the original March 22 ship date Credit: StockStudio Aerials / Shutterstock Microsoft has rescheduled the launch of its ambitious Visual Studio 2010 software development platform and the accompanying .Net Framework 4 programming platfom to April 12, after having scrapped a planned March 22 release date. “Short but sweet, Visual Studio 2010 and .Net Framework 4 will launch on Monday, 12 April 2010,” said Rob Caron, marketing communications manager for Developer and User Experience Runtimes and Tools at Microsoft, in a blog entry published Wednesday evening without elaboration. [ Among other capabilities, Visual Studio 2010 will offer developers search engine optimization features. | The InfoWorld Test Center recently gave a thumbs-up to the second beta of Visual Studio 2010. ] Issues with performance of the platform spotted by beta testers had prompted the company last month to postpone the initial March launch. Microsoft has said the launch date would be about the same approximate time when the package was available to developers at large. “I think they just needed the extra time to account for performance tweaks based on beta feedback, fit in the release candidate in February, and have time to make any final changes that are needed to address release candidate feedback,” said analyst Rob Sanfilippo, of Directions on Microsoft. “This is one of the shortest ‘slips’ I’ve seen, and if they would have stuck to their previous promise of first half of 2010 a bit longer without being specific about the previous March 22 date, the perception of the slip could have been avoided.” Visual Studio 2010 has been positioned as a platform for building Microsoft SharePoint, Windows 7, and Windows Azure cloud applications. It also offers historical debugging and Silverlight rich Internet application development capabilities. The .Net Framework 4 programming platform features capabilities such as a reduction in size. Software DevelopmentTechnology Industry