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HANOVER, GERMANY -- The second beta release of Visual Studio 2005, a new release of Microsoft's developer tool set, has slipped into April, a company spokesperson said this week. The final version of the product is due in September, he said.

Microsoft had said it would deliver Visual Studio 2005 Beta 2 by the end of March. The company won't make that deadline because it is still working on the product, said Said Zahedani, director of the developer platform and strategy group at Microsoft's German subsidiary during a news conference at the CeBIT trade show here.

Microsoft plans to deliver the final version of Visual Studio 2005 at its Professional Developers Conference in September in Los Angeles, Zahedani said. However, feedback from the second beta could change those plans and push final release into the fourth quarter, he said.

Moving Target

The delivery date for Visual Studio 2005 has been a moving target. Originally the product was due to ship in the second half of 2004. Microsoft in March last year pushed that back until the first half of 2005. Most recently the software maker has said the final product would ship in "summer," which in the Northern Hemisphere officially ends late September.

Visual Studio 2005 is seen as a key part of Microsoft's push into enterprise computing, what Microsoft calls its Dynamic Systems Initiative. The developer tool set is to include a wealth of improvements to make programmers more productive and help them build more robust applications that are also easier to manage.

To see PC World's complete CeBIT coverage, check out our CeBIT 2005 news page.