Microsoft Corp. today announced a series of programs to involve customers in the development of Microsoft� Visual Studio� 2005 (formerly code-named "Whidbey"), foster community development and empower its partners. Specifically, Microsoft announced the following:

• The Community Technology Preview initiative for Visual Studio 2005 offering prerelease versions of Visual Studio 2005 to facilitate earlier and more in-depth feedback from customers on Microsoft�s developer tools
• Two new ASP.NET resources for Web developers to further increase their productivity: the Issue Tracker Starter Kit and the DotNetNuke Portal 2.0
• VSIP SDK 2003 Extras, which enables Visual Studio Industry Partner (VSIP) program members to customize, extend and integrate with Visual Studio using managed code
• In a separate announcement, Microsoft announced it has signed an agreement with Business Objects Software Ltd. to ship Crystal Reports, the award-winning reporting solution from Business Objects, with the next version of Microsoft Visual Studio, Visual Studio 2005.

The announcements underscore the collective success of Windows� and Web developers, partners and customers all participating in the Microsoft developer ecosystem.