Commerce Server 2006 Beta 1 is Live

It’s done. It’s official. It’s live. Our gift this holiday season to our customers is the Beta of the most advanced eCommerce release ever from Microsoft – Commerce Server 2006.

The Commerce Server 2006 Beta 1 is now publicly available on the web. Download it and start playing with it - we are dying to hear back from our customers. Ryan has a lot of good details on his blog about the Beta that you should check out as well (like the fact that you can use the RTM versions of VS 2005 and SQL 2005 with the CS 2006 Beta).

Here’s what you need to do to get started with the CS 2006 Beta 1:

• Download the Beta bits from the Microsoft Connect System site.
• Read up the online Installation and Configuration Guide.
• Read up the online Readme for the Beta.
• Start writing code using the Beta bits.
• Post questions to the Beta forums on the MS Connect System site.
• Provide feedback via the MS Connect System site (you can report bugs, suggestions etc.).

It’s been a long and hard journey till Beta, and hopefully you’ll like what you see.

I plan to blog around some of the technical details of the Beta (mainly concerning the Orders subsystem) in the coming weeks (things like how to do XYZ). If you have any area that you would like me to cover, let me know and I’ll try and cover those.

Happy Holidays and Happy Coding!