Twenty-five years ago, I started my first day at Microsoft as a developer on the Access team, and then as a developer on a newly created product – Visual InterDev. I remember how the emphasis was on the Visual part of our various product offerings, we have come a long way to the Visual Studio we have now.
Today, I’m proud and humbled that Visual Studio is turning twenty – we’re celebrating two decades of Visual Studio! As we hit this great milestone, I’m also excited to announce that Visual Studio 2017 will be released on March 7.
As part of the team that created the first version of Visual Studio, it was an ambitious goal to bring together everything developers needed to build applications for the client, the server, and the web. Twenty years ago, on January 28, 1997, we announced that we were going to launch Visual Studio 97 – a single product that would bring together best-of-breed productivity tools for any developer. This was no trivial undertaking. It was a challenging task to bring Visual Basic, Visual C++, Visual J++, Visual FoxPro, and Visual InterDev into one single product. The team delivered, kicking off decades of incredible productivity for millions of developers worldwide.
Over the years, Visual Studio grew from an IDE to a suite of products and services, including Visual Studio Team Services, Visual Studio Code, and many others. The family of Visual Studio products extends across platforms, enabling developers to build mobile-first, cloud-first apps that span Android, iOS, Linux, MacOS, and Windows. It also offers industry-leading DevOps practices across all types of projects, as well as tight integration with the Azure cloud.
On March 7, we are proud to bring you our newest release, Visual Studio 2017, with a livestreamed two-day launch event at https://launch.visualstudio.com. Brian Harry, Miguel de Icaza, and Scott Hanselman will join me on stage to share the latest innovations from Visual Studio, .NET, Xamarin, Azure, and more. You will have the opportunity to engage in demo packed sessions focusing on key improvements within the product. To help you get started, on March 8, we will also bring you a full-day of live training with multiple topics to choose from. Save the date.
Whether you’re new to Visual Studio or have been with us on this journey, we want to hear and share your story. Grab your phone and take a short video to tell us a little about your Visual Studio journey:
- How long have you been using Visual Studio?
- What is the coolest software you’ve built?
- What do you like about Visual Studio?
- How about birthday wishes? How would you say, “Happy Birthday, Visual Studio” in your native language?
Check out this example from Sara Ford:
What memorabilia have you collected over the years? Is it a sticker, t-shirt, mug, poster, button, or something else? Share a photo or a short video clip on Instagram or post your story on Twitter and Facebook Video or YouTube using the hashtag #MyVSstory.
I look forward to hearing your stories!
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Julia Liuson, Corporate Vice President, Visual Studio
Julia is responsible for developer tools and services, including the programming languages and runtimes designed for a broad base of software developers and development teams as well as for Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, and the .NET Framework lines of products and services. Julia joined Microsoft in 1992, and has held a variety of technical and management positions while at Microsoft, including the General Manager for Visual Studio Business Applications, the General Manager for Server and Tools in Shanghai, and the development manager for Visual Basic. |