Smart Device Extensions Beta 1

Thanks Vla who saw this over at Activewin The most capable personal digital assistants (PDAs) used today are more powerful than many of the desktop computers in use just five years ago. For this reason, many organizations are turning to smart devices as a way to improve operational efficiencies and gain a competitive advantage.

Once installed, SDE becomes directly incorporated into the integrated development environment (IDE). SDE will ship as an integral part of Visual Studio .NET.

To date, most developers are unable to employ the same programming tools for mobile and other devices that they use for Microsoft Windows® and the Web. Instead, developers who create applications are typically required to use one set of tools, languages, and programming models for the desktop and another for their device applications. This added demand hinders productivity and requires costly retraining. If developers want to extend their existing desktop applications to the device, they must learn a completely new set of tools, a new set of programming interfaces and practices, and typically a new and specialized language.

Please follow these steps to register for the Smart Device Extensions and .NET Compact Framework Beta program:

Go to Beta Place.
Enter "SDEBeta" as the username and ".NetCF" as the password. Please note these are case-sensitive.
Complete the nomination survey.
Within a few days, you will receive an e-mail confirmation with a BetaPlace username and password to access the Smart Device Extensions and .NET Compact Framework Beta program.
With the new credentials you will be able to download the installation package and participate in the Beta program.