Microsoft have released a full range of the next version of Visual Studio, currently named “Orcas”, in beta to the public. This includes Professional, Team Server and all the Express editions.

• Visual Studio Orcas

They also released .Net 3.5 which apparently doesn’t have many breaking changes.

Orcas is supposed to fully support all .Net 3 technologies - Windows Presentation Foundation, Windows Communication Foundation, Windows Workflow Foundation and Windows CardSpace. Not sure if the WPF also includes Silverlight (WPF/everywhere).

The Express editions of Visual Studio are very good and have all the main features needed to make software. Hopefully Microsoft will keep Orcas’ Express editions free as well.