Visual J# (pronounced "J-sharp") .NET gives programmers a migration path from the existing Visual J++ Java environment to the new .NET Framework. Visual J# .NET is an add-on to the Visual Studio.NET environment that enables programmers to write applications using Java syntax, but the resulting applications use the .NET Framework class libraries and Common Language Runtime (CLR) rather than Sun's Java 2 APIs and a Java Virtual Machine. Visual J# .NET also provides tools to import and convert J++ applications, which then run under the CLR and access J++ libraries (e.g., the Windows Foundation Classes) through the CLR's COM interoperability feature. Visual J# .NET doesn't use any Sun Java technology, and applications might not be easily portable to Sun-compliant Java. Visual J# .NET will ship in the first half of 2002 and so will not be part of the 2001 Visual Studio.NET release. The Visual J# .NET Beta 1 download and further information is at msdn.microsoft.com/visualj/jsharp/beta.asp. For further information on the .NET Framework, see ".NET Framework Forces Decisions" on page 3 of the Oct. 2001 Update.