Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 now widely available

Microsoft has made its newly-minted Visual Studio 2008 IDE (integrated development environment) widely available.
Through released to manufacture in November 2007, it was previously available only to Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) subscribers.  As of yesterday, Visual Studio 2008 is now available via volume licensing and also for purchase as a full packaged product.

Visual Studio 2008 brings many new features to the table, such as multitargeting and Language-Integrated Query (LINQ).  Multitargeting allows the newest version of Visual Studio to build code targeting older versions of the .NET Framework, while LINQ lets developers do native queries without the  use of specialized languages.

The official launch for the 2008 trio of products—Visual Studio 2008, Windows Server 2008, and SQL Server 2008—is scheduled for February 27, 2008, in Los Angeles.

In the meantime, you can try Microsoft’s free 90-day trial.

                                                                                                              Source: arstechnica.com