Microsoft has released a January 2007 Community Technology Preview (CTP) of the planned "Orcas" release of Visual Studio. Orcas is Microsoft's next-generation development tool for Windows Vista, the 2007 Office System and the Web, Microsoft said. Orcas is intended to deliver on Microsoft's vision for smart client applications by enabling developers to build connected applications with a rich user experience, the Microsoft has released a January 2007 Community Technology Preview (CTP) of the planned “Orcas” release of Visual Studio.Orcas is Microsoft’s next-generation development tool for Windows Vista, the 2007 Office System and the Web, Microsoft said.Orcas is intended to deliver on Microsoft’s vision for smart client applications by enabling developers to build connected applications with a rich user experience, the company said. The CTP enables developers to work with the upcoming toolset and platform improvements. Featured in the CTP are more powerful data APIs, with the ADO.Net Entity Framework and LINQ (Language Integrated Query) to ADO.Net technologies. Also included is C# 3.0 language support, as are ClickOnce improvements for deploying Windows Presentation Foundation applications. Runtime and design-time support for Office 2007 is included. Download details can be accessed here. Technology Industry