Visual Studio to Get Tools for Word, Excel

Extensions to Visual Studio .NET (VS.NET) will enable the creation of future Office solutions using Microsoft’s latest tools and languages. The Visual Studio Tools for Office will enable developers to create Word and Excel documents that include application-specific logic (such as data validation code) running under the .NET Framework. The tools could provide a better development environment for Office-based clients and help produce more secure, reliable clients than the Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) environment, which dominates Office development today. However, VBA will continue to ship with Office, leaving Microsoft with a divided developer community to support.

Why Promote Office Development?

Microsoft continues to see Office solutions-custom applications that leverage Office functions through the product’s COM APIs-as a way to add value to its otherwise mature suite, extending the suite to a wider audience of “information workers” and staving off the threat of “thin client” solutions that require only a browser. (See “Information Worker Focus of New Client Plans” on page 26 of the Oct. 2002 Update.)