Mainsoft on Wednesday is announcing the release of Grasshopper 2.0 Technology Preview 2, a plug-in to Visual Studio 2005 enabling .Net developers to write ASP.Net Web applications and deploy them on Linux and other Java-enabled platforms. Featured is the ability for developers to create Web projects using .Net 2.0 technologies such as ASP.Net 2.0 authentication and authorization. ASP.Net controls can be deployed Mainsoft on Wednesday is announcing the release of Grasshopper 2.0 Technology Preview 2, a plug-in to Visual Studio 2005 enabling .Net developers to write ASP.Net Web applications and deploy them on Linux and other Java-enabled platforms.Featured is the ability for developers to create Web projects using .Net 2.0 technologies such as ASP.Net 2.0 authentication and authorization. ASP.Net controls can be deployed on the Apache Tomcat servlet container.Bundled with the preview is a copy of the IBM Cloudscape database, which features a Java runtime. Developers can port existing ASP.Net applications to Linux and other Java-enabled platforms. The Visual Studio 2005 debugger can be used to attach the Web application to Java and control execution. A Web site administration tool allows for management of membership and roles. A tutorial is featured to take developers through the process of developing a Web-based accounting application, with membership and security, and deploying it on Linux.The preview is the result of Mainsoft’s collaboration with Mono, an open source development initiative featuring an open source version of Microsoft .Net technologies. Grasshopper 2.0 will be featured in the upcoming Visual MainWin 2.0 product suite. Technology Industry