Microsoft is retiring its Visual J# product and the accompanying Java Language Conversion Assistant, according to a company posting on the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) Web site from earlier this year.The Visual J# language and Java Language Conversion Assistant have been Microsoft’s offerings for moving Java code over to the Microsoft .Net platform. But there has been lessening interest in these, according to Microsoft. “Due to a decline in customer interest, Microsoft made the decision to discontinue investment in developing future versions of Visual J#,” a Microsoft representative said in an email on Friday afternoon. “Visual J# customers will continue to enjoy the standard Microsoft support cycle: 10-year support cycle (five years’ Mainstream Support and five years’ Extended Support). Microsoft is committed to supporting customers with investments in Visual J# and is planning to release a 64-bit version of J# later this year,” the representative said.The Visual J# Web page on MSDN said customers have told the company that the existing feature set largely suffices.“Since customers have told us that the existing J# feature set largely meets their needs and usage of J# is declining, Microsoft is retiring the Visual J# product and Java Language Conversion Assistant tool to better allocate resources for other customer requirements. The J# language and JLCA tool will not be available in future versions of Visual Studio,” the company said. Specifically, Java Language Conversion Assistant is a tool converting existing Java-language code into Microsoft Visual C# for developers to move existing applications to the .NET Framework. Visual J#, meanwhile, is a programming language in the same fashion as Visual C# and Visual Basic. Software Development