Microsoft is offering a Community Technology Preview (CTP) of the planned “Orcas” release of the Visual Studio tools platform, which features a virtualization format for distribution. Orcas delivers on Microsoft’s smart client applications vision by enabling developers to quickly build connected applications providing high-quality rich user experiences, the company said. More secure, manageable and reliable applications leveraging Windows Vista and the 2007 Office System are pledged. “As interesting as this release is for its ‘new bits’ value alone, what’s equally interesting to me is the means by which we’re distributing it – as a virtual machine that you can use with Virtual PC or Virtual Server (both of which are now freely available – Virtual PC is now free),” said Rob Caron, Microsoft lead product manager for Developer Tools Content Strategy, in his blog. “By using Microsoft virtualization technology, you’ll automatically have a sandboxed environment for trying pre-release software. At the same time, you won’t have to suffer through the challenge of an evolving setup experience.” The general release of Orcas is expected to happen after the Windows Vista OS ships; Vista is due to businesses later this year. The CTP is available here. Software Development