Toward that end, Microsoft continues to talk with customers and partners.
Several MBS solution providers were unsure of the MBF status, but said they had more than enough on their plates with the current releases and near-term updates of Great Plains, Microsoft CRM and other MBS products.
In related news, developers eager to see the latest and greatest Whidbey code will get access to what Microsoft is calling "community technical previews" of that code later this week at the VSLive show in San Francisco.
These "community code drops" are interim builds of the nascent tool suite for developers to hammer on. The goal is to get earlier feedback from hard-core developers, Sridharan said. CRN last week reported that an additional preview of the code would be made available at the show.
Sridharan said these smaller, more incremental code drops differ from more monolithic alpha and beta releases the company tends to issue. Microsoft also typically offers "external releases" of early code to important customers. One solution provider posited that Microsoft has decided that one of those external releases is big enough to give to a broader audience.
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