Visual Basic .NET is the most significant upgrade to VB since its first release 10 years ago. It is one of the core pieces of Microsoft's upgrade to Visual Studio, which also includes the new language C# and Visual C++. The new VStudio release is significant because for the first time, Microsoft will have a common user interface for all of its languages. VB has many new features, making it an equal citizen with other popular languages, such as C++ and Java. Currently there are more than 4 million VB programmers and we expect a large number to upgrade to the new version over the next few years.