After it ships the "Whidbey" and "Orcas" versions of its popular Visual Studio tool set, Microsoft Corp."s Visual Studio development team is headed for "Hawaii." Hawaii is the code name for a version of Microsoft"s Visual Studio tool set two versions beyond Whidbey, also known as Visual Studio 2005, according to sources familiar with Microsoft"s plans. Hawaii will be a completely redesigned tool set, aimed at taking developers well beyond current capabilities, the sources said.
Although Microsoft had been using the names of Pacific Northwest islands, such as Whidbey and Orcas, to code-name new versions of Visual Studio, developers chose the code name Hawaii because it takes developers much further than the other two versions and also because the team plans to celebrate redesigning the IDE (integrated development environment) in Hawaii, sources close to the company said.