For the past few months, Microsoft has been releasing technical previews of Visual Studio 2015, but it looks like next week will bring the first release candidate announcement for the platform. This means the platform will soon be released for sale and that the code is now believed to be in a steady state.
As of right now, you cannot download the new release, but if you check out the page here (screenshot below in the event the page is pulled), you can see what is new with the platform; Microsoft previously released six technical previews of the platform.
For Microsoft, Visual Studio, besides being a source of revenue, is the company"s play into the developer platforms market; Visual Studio 2015 makes it possible to code for all types of devices including Android and iOS from within one application. And to further expand the tool"s capabilities, the company recently announced integration points with the top three game engines too.
Seeing as BUILD takes place next week and the Visual Studio is built for this audience, it makes sense that they will talk about the platform and release the RC version of the tool.
We will be attending BUILD next week and will cover all of the announcements as they occur. If you are heading to SF for the event too, make sure to say hi as we will be on the show floor.