Oracle Announces New Releases of Developer Tools for Microsoft .NET

Building on its commitment to support the Microsoft .NET development platform, Oracle today announced it has released beta versions of Oracle(r) Data Provider for .NET and Oracle Developer Tools for Visual Studio .NET that are expected to deliver enhanced ease of use and productivity capabilities for .NET developers using Oracle Database 10g. In conjunction with Oracle Data Provider for .NET, Oracle is also planning on introducing Oracle Providers for ASP.NET - which would integrate with ASP.NET Services to enable ASP.NET applications to transparently manage state and various other useful information within an Oracle Database.
The beta versions of Oracle Data Provider for .NET and Oracle Developer Tools for Visual Studio .NET plan to introduce new features that greatly simplify .NET application development using Oracle Database. Both tools would incorporate significant new capabilities supporting ASP.NET, Microsoft’s framework for dynamic Web sites and Web applications, and would enable developers to build .NET applications using complex data types more easily by allowing the creation of .NET custom types from Oracle abstract data types. New capabilities planned include User Defined Type support, Source Control integration, and enhanced integration with Visual Studio 2005.

The beta version of Oracle Developer Tools for Visual Studio .NET is expected to feature new ASP.NET Web development support enabling developers to automatically generate code by dragging and dropping database objects onto their ASP.NET Web pages. The release is expected to also include integrated source control capabilities easing the back up and versioning of .NET applications running with Oracle Database by allowing Oracle scripts to be source controlled within Visual Studio. Additionally, the tool would offer enhanced script editing and execution allowing for easier testing and deployment. Oracle Developer Tools for Visual Studio .NET is a free plug-in that enables developers to use Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 or Visual Studio .NET 2003 to develop and deploy Microsoft .NET Framework-based applications and Web services on Oracle Database 10g.

Oracle Data Provider for .NET helps developers to access information from Oracle Database more efficiently. The free product enables developers to exploit the unique performance, reliability, scalability and security capabilities of Oracle Database 10g such as application security context, clustering, and native Oracle data types such as LOBs and REF Cursors.

“Delivering deeper integration between the Oracle Database and .NET is a priority,” said Mike Hichwa, vice president of Software Development, Oracle. “Our ongoing investment in these developer tools highlights our plans for .NET and is expected to enable .NET Framework-based developers to more easily take advantage of the capabilities and power of the Oracle Database.”

“With ASP.NET representing a significant percentage of the Microsoft development community, this announcement is underscores Oracle’s ongoing support to provide tight integration between Oracle Database and Microsoft technologies,” said Dwight Davis, Vice President, Ovum.

Long-standing Oracle Commitment to Windows Platform
Since 1985, Oracle has helped thousands of customers build mission-critical database systems on the Microsoft platform. Oracle is a Premier partner in the Microsoft Visual Studio Industry Partner (VSIP) program, and as a result offers tight integration between Oracle Database and Microsoft Visual Studio and Windows Server 2003. Today, Oracle offers Oracle Database for 32-bit and 64-bit Windows Server 2003. Additionally, Windows customers can take advantage of Oracle Real Application Clusters which allow them to turn a cluster of low-cost, industry standard servers running Windows into a highly available, scalable and secure platform for running database and packaged applications.

Pricing and Availability
Oracle offers a free, downloadable beta version of Oracle Developer Tools for Visual Studio .NET from the Oracle Technology Network (OTN) at:

http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/dotnet/tools/index.html .