Microsoft announced this week the release of Visual Studio LightSwitch Beta 2. This release includes a GoLive license meaning that it is production-ready.
Jason Zanders spoke at a VSIP conference this week that I attended and got the skinny on this LightSwitch product. LightSwitch is a product that was designed and built around a gap in Microsoft's offerings--a gap in the tools available to build Windows applications.
Not all applications require a skilled developer, there simply isn't enough time in the day for developers to write every little application a company needs, nor, in many cases, does it makes sense to utilize a skilled developer to build certain applications. Microsoft estimates there are approximately 55 million business information workers and of those 6 million are considered "latent business developers." This means they have the skills and knowledge to write basic applications; and anyone who works in a large company will see hundreds or thousands of applications written by them. These applications range from simple Excel macros to stand-alone Access applications.
Okay, back to the gap. These latent business developers had to gravitate to certain tools that fit their skill level. Often this meant using applications like Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Access. These tools allowed them to build simple application to get there goal accomplished--which is great. Problems came when these applications needed to be extended or handed to the IT department for support and maintenance. Often, these applications had to be rewritten because the tools used to build them didn't allow Visual Studio developers to extend them. The missing piece (aka the gap) is a tool that is easy for the power user to use yet was easy to migrate into a full featured Visual Studio application--enter LightSwitch.
LightSwitch is a powerful application development tool that gives both power users and skilled developers the ability to make simple, yet feature-rich applications without the overhead of Visual Studio. For more information, check out the Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch Web site or stay tuned for future AppDev learning courses where we will soon be tackling this new developer tool.