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By Suzanna Kerridge, 14 February 2002 13:50

NEWS Developers have given Microsoft Visual Studio. Net a warm welcome and said it represents a major departure to Microsoft's previous approach to developing tools. Microsoft launched its .Net developer toolkit yesterday at a high-profile briefing at London's Natural History Museum. For the first time, Microsoft developers can avoid the rip-and-replace syndrome by adopting a piecemeal approach, said Tony Berry, head of product development at Business Travel International. Dave Green, software architect at Nationwide and .Net beta tester, agreed. He said: "All past technical tools are sold under the view that you'll rip up all existing applications and replace it with Microsoft - preferably within a month. "But .Net allows you to do it piece-by-piece, which is the only way enterprises have ever done this. Finally, Microsoft is taking this issue seriously." However, Green urged companies to carefully examine how the product will help shave costs before investing. "It's shiny but being shiny does not make it an automatic technical buy. "It is now an industry given that developing will add value but that's not the case. Code written needs to add business benefit and on average 50 per cent of code written doesn't add benefit and this is not an acceptable level," he said. Security is still a major consideration as well, claimed Andy Tinlin, partner at KPMG Consulting. Winning consumer confidence through security is crucial to Visual Studio .Net's success. "Security for consumers has very little to do with technology and a lot to do with perception. Historically, companies have seriously under invested in security. They tried to get away with the bare minimum but now it is on their radar. It is a big issue and it has to be dealt with to make people feel safe about using web services." Many are hailing Visual Studio as the most important part of the jigsaw to guarantee .Net's success. "Technically, this is a step forward. Web services are what we all thought the internet was going to be like when it first came along. That's why there is a wave of excitement around Visual Studio .Net," said Tinlin.