MonoDevelop Development Environment Available

WALTHAM, Mass. (Map) - WALTHAM, Mass., March 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Novell today announced the availability of MonoDevelop 1.0, an open source development tool for Mono(R) that supports Microsoft* Visual Studio* project formats along with C# and other programming languages. MonoDevelop enables developers to quickly write desktop and ASP.NET Web applications on Linux* and Mac OS X*. MonoDevelop will make it easier for developers to port .NET applications created with Visual Studio to Linux and Mac OS X and to maintain a single code base for all three platforms.

Novell also announced the availability of the Mono 2.0 beta, the latest version of the open source, cross-platform .NET development framework implementation that allows software developers to efficiently build .NET applications for Linux, Mac OS X, BSD, Solaris* and Windows* users. The Mono 2.0 beta includes support for Microsoft .NET 2.0.

"The Mono project is growing to become the leading choice for the development of Linux applications through the work of a community dedicated to helping people migrate their existing knowledge and applications to UNIX*," said Miguel de Icaza, vice president of developer platforms for Novell and maintainer of the Mono project. "MonoDevelop continues Mono's innovation to make it far easier to build and develop applications on Linux and other platforms, allowing developers to get software to market faster and more cost effectively."

MonoDevelop will also make it easier for developers using Mono to migrate .NET applications created with Visual Studio over to Linux and Mac*. The Mono 2.0 beta includes a .NET 3.5 preview in addition to a .NET 2.0 profile, plus improved Mac support and a Mono migration analysis tool that helps customers determine their Linux readiness for .NET migration.

Jason Alexander, chief technology officer of Telligent Systems, said, "Using Novell's Mono framework for our new Graffiti CMS product, we're now able to reach a customer base that we couldn't access before. Our partnership empowers the small business owner and everyday individual to create and maintain their own social networks and blogs with ease. Mono also enables Graffiti to run entirely on other operating systems with little to no customizations to our source code, and we're very excited about that. The finished product is just incredibly impressive."

Availability

MonoDevelop 1.0 and the Mono 2.0 beta can be downloaded beginning March 14 at http://www.mono-project.com/Downloads. For more information about the Mono project, a community initiative sponsored by Novell(R), visit http://www.mono-project.com.

About Novell

Novell, Inc. (Nasdaq: NOVL) delivers infrastructure software for the Open Enterprise. Novell is a leader in desktop to data center operating systems based on Linux and the software required to secure and manage mixed IT environments. Novell helps customers around the world minimize cost, complexity and risk, allowing them to focus on innovation and growth. For more information, visit http://www.novell.com.

Novell and Mono are registered trademarks of Novell, Inc. in the United States and other countries. *Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. All other third-party trademarks are the property of their respective owners.