Microsoft Corp. today released a beta developer kit for the Microsoft® .NET Micro Framework, a new development platform for use with devices that are typically constrained by cost, memory, processor and/or power consumption. Announced at the Embedded Systems Conference in Boston, the .NET Micro Framework broad beta extends the advantages of .NET and the Visual Studio® toolset into a class of the smallest of devices.

“The .NET Micro Framework is a natural extension of Microsoft’s embedded offerings and provides a compelling, easy-to-use solution for developers,” said Colin Miller, director of the .NET Micro Framework at Microsoft. “We have utilized this platform with several projects at Microsoft and are excited to provide this kit to developers so they can use Microsoft tools to extend their skills to a set of smaller devices.”

The managed code environment and Visual Studio integration helps increase efficiency and reliability in the embedded space as well as providing PC emulation capabilities and on-device debugging within the Visual Studio Integrated Development Environment. User interface development is supported with Windows® Presentation Foundation.