Microsoft is proud to announce the availability of Visual Studio 2008 in volume licensing, retail, and MSDN download.

This exciting new version was released to manufacturing (RTM) on November 19, 2007 and at that time active MSDN subscribers were able to download it right away.  With its inclusion on the January 2008 volume licensing price list, the product is now available to sell and ship to your customers via Open, Select, Enterprise Agreement (EA), and Full Packaged Product (FPP).

The Features

Visual Studio 2008 hosts a variety of new and exciting features:

• Language-Integrated Query (LINQ) lets developers do native queries without the  use of specialized languages.
  ASP.NET AJAX, JSON, RSS, REST and JavaScript are all supported
• Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) is now included in Visual Studio 2008 Professional and Visual Studio Team System
• Developers now have the ability to bring corporate data and interactive applications within the familiar Office environment to ease deployment   and adoption of the application
• Visual Studio 2008 builds applications that work with .NET versions 2.0, 3.0 and 3.5
• Cascading Style sheet and HTML editors have been greatly enhanced for productivity
• And more!

Customer Resources

• Download Visual Studio 2008 Trial
• When purchasing Visual Studio, always remember to add a MSDN subscription (software assurance) to ensure priority access to new product releases, upgrades, development resources, and additional programs & tools.

Helpful Links

• Visual Studio Professional & Standard Product Page
• Visual Studio Team System Product Page
• About Visual Studio 2008 Team System
• Visual Studio 2008 Learning Portal
• An Overview of Visual Studio 2008 (white paper)
• Visual Studio 2008 Downloads
• Visual Studio 2008 Page from Gear-Up Sales Toolkit
• RSS Feed: Headlines for Visual Studio 2008  

Launch-Related Resources

For a wealth of partner-focused resources and information about all of these products, visit Launch Central today!  This site includes the online version of the U.S. Partner Launch Readiness Kit.  For information and resources for all audiences, visit HeroesHappenHere, the official launch site for Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008.  Here you can find more information about launch events near you, learn more about the products, engage in community activities and social network resources, and be a part of the launch yourself!