Beta 2 is now ready for download! Beta 2 comes with a “go live” license which means you can start using the product for production related work.

The biggest change you’ll see with these release is the change to the SKU line up.  The goal with the new line up is to reduce the number of SKU’s you have to think about and install and make it a very simple set:

• Visual Studio Express:  the free Express SKUs for C++, C#, VB, and Web have been updated and released with this version and give you the basics for writing applications
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Professional with MSDN: professional development tools as you are used to today with the addition of source control integration, extensibility, etc.
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Premium with MSDN: Premium has everything in Professional plus advanced development (including profiling and debugging), advanced database support, coded UI testing, etc.  Rather than buying multiple “Team” SKUs, you can now get this combination of features in one box.
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN: Ultimate has everything in Premium plus additional advanced features for developers, testers, and architects including features like Intellitrace (formerly Historical Debugging), the new architecture tools (UML, discovery), etc.  All of the scenarios we’ve talked about are supported with this version of the product.

The UI has been refreshed with a new start page that gives you quick links to common tasks or background on programming tasks.

Beta 2 now ships with several new project types such as Windows Azure and SharePoint, all available for C# and Visual Basic programmers.

In addition support for Silverlight 3 and ASP.NET MVC 2 are included in the build.

For more details visit the product site at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/default.aspx