Microsoft on Thursday said that Oracle has pledged to make its database software work better with Microsoft"s development tools.
The companies said that Oracle has joined Microsoft"s Visual Studio partner program and that later this year it will release a free software download for Microsoft"s Visual Studio .Net 2003 development tools. The software download will make it easier to write Windows-based applications that access data stored in an Oracle database, said Prem Kumar, a vice president in Oracle"s server technology division.
Developers have been using Visual Studio for years to build software that accesses Oracle databases. But "the process of writing code is still too laborious," Kumar said. "We"re trying to build integration points so that it is seamless." The software download will make that process easier by enabling developers to access data stored in Oracle database tables and to debug database applications from within Visual Studio, said Nick Abbott, a product manager at Microsoft. The deal makes "Oracle databases a first-class citizen" for Visual Studio developers, he said.