Micro Focus has announced four new product releases as part of the launch of Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 -- Visual COBOL, Silk4Net, DevPartner Studio, and Analyzer Express. Together, the tools help developers build, analyze, and test code, and all are fully integrated with Visual Studio 2010.

• Micro Focus Visual COBOL lets developers exploit existing enterprise applications on the Microsoft platform. The millions of organizations that continue to rely on COBOL-based applications to run their business now have a low-risk opportunity to take advantage of Visual Studio 2010 without the need for rewriting their applications.
• Micro Focus Silk4Net brings functional and regression test automation to Visual Studio 2010. Its benefits include:
• The ability to test a variety of application types from Visual Studio 2010.
• Detects defects early in projects and reduces rework through more frequent testing that complete in less time.
• For testing teams, it reduces repetitive manual testing enabling more qualitative testing.
• Micro Focus DevPartner Studio lets developers debug, analyze, test and tune applications and will deliver enhanced visibility into the inner workings of applications being developed within Visual Studio 2010. Key benefits here include:
• Automatic detection and diagnosis of software defects, performance problems and security vulnerabilities.
• Improvement of overall software quality by taking advantage of built-in coding standards and best practices.
• Management visibility with actionable reports revealing the quality and stability of the code base.
• Micro Focus Analyzer Express for Visual Studio helps developers accelerate their day-to-day maintenance activities. Key benefits here include:
• Acceleration of development activities, allowing development team members to gain greater insights into applications. Micro Focus claims this knowledge means that change requests can be executed faster, reducing the time required to complete a business requirement by up to 45%.
• Immediate access to data-flow analysis, enabling entire teams to be "instant expert" and as much as 40% more effective, says the company.
• Improvement of application quality due to access to accurate and complete data-flow analysis, which helps development teams avoid costly errors and re-work that can lead to poor quality applications.

"Our presence in the roll-out of Visual Studio 2010 demonstrates both the relevance of core IT assets within global organizations' IT infrastructures and the demand from the developer community to exploit them on Microsoft platforms," said Peter Duffell of Micro Focus.