Microsoft releases Office Developer Tools for Visual Studio 2012

SOFTWARE DEVELOPER Microsoft has released Office Developer Tools for its Microsoft Visual Studio integrated development environment (IDE).

Microsoft launched Microsoft Office 2013 in January and a major upgrade to Microsoft Office 365 last week and the firm usually follows up with developer tools for the latest versions of its Microsoft Office suite soon after to help third party developers create add-ons.

Now the firm has released its Microsoft Office Developer Tools for its Microsoft Visual Studio IDE, claiming it will allow application developers to create, test and deploy Microsoft Office add-ons.

S. Somasegar, corporate VP of Microsoft's Developer Division, said the production release of Microsoft Office Developer Tools has additions from the preview release including a validation process before applications are submitted to the Microsoft Office Store. He said the firm has improved the Microsoft Office Developer Tools' workflow and that its Remote debugging tool has been heavily updated to take advantage of Service Bus.

Microsoft's Office Store is an app store aimed at making it easier to install addons and templates. However Microsoft requires Microsoft Office App developers to sign up for a Microsoft Office 365 Developer subscription before they can publish applications.

Given that Microsoft waited until it had revamped Microsoft Office 365, it is likely both the firm and developers will be pitching Microsoft Office Apps at Microsoft Office 365 users, which has a cut-down feature set compared to the standalone Microsoft Office 2013.

But while Microsoft's Office Developer Tools are a free download, developers will need to purchase Microsoft Visual Studio 2012 and a subscription before they can start to try to make money from the Microsoft Office App Store. µ