Microsoft Corp yesterday released the first public beta of Commerce Server 2002, the latest component of its ambitious .NET web services strategy. The product, Microsoft promises "tight integration" with the Visual Studio.NET application development environment.

The company said in a statement that the latest Commerce Server features a .NET application framework, aimed at speeding up development of web services based on the .NET platform. A number of class libraries and interoperability with the Common Language Runtime (CLR) will help developers use ASP.NET to create applications that run on Commerce Server.

The product also will support multiple languages and currencies for the first time. Existing components such as product catalogs and transaction analysis have been upgraded to support these internationalized features.

Commerce Server is Microsoft's platform for developing and running e-commerce web sites. The product provides an application framework including common etail features such as user profiling, catalogs and shopping carts, to give developers a faster time to market. It also features analytical functions and a number of pre-built site templates for developers in a hurry.

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