Mono Project Continues to Advance .NET Development on Linux

Latest releases of Mono and MonoDevelop offer greater scalability and productivity for ISVs and corporate developers

SAN FRANCISCO, March 30 -- (Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco) -- The Mono(R) project, an open source initiative sponsored by Novell, today announced the availability of MonoDevelop 2.0, an open source integrated development environment for programming with C# and other languages. Developers can also take advantage of Mono 2.4, the latest release of the open source, cross-platform .NET application framework which powers the recently announced SUSE(R) Linux Enterprise Mono Extension. Mono and MonoDevelop together streamline the development process and provide the tools that Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and corporate developers need to build and deploy .NET applications quickly and efficiently on the platform of their choice.

"By making .NET application development and deployment accessible for Linux, the Mono project is committed to expanding ISV and corporate developers' options beyond the Windows platform," said Miguel de Icaza, vice president of Development Platforms at Novell and leader of the Mono project. "With the newest releases for Mono and MonoDevelop, we continue to improve and extend the development tools and framework to deliver on this goal. The features and functionality available in this release are allowing developers to increase the number of .NET applications that are built and run on Linux."

ISVs build customer value with MonoDevelop and Mono 2.4

"As an enterprise product, it is critical that SplendidCRM runs on both Windows and Linux," said Paul Rony, president of SplendidCRM Software. "With the help of Mono, we are able to deliver our latest build on Linux in just a few minutes. It doesn't get any easier than that."

Hristo Kosev, chief technology officer at Telerik, said, "Over the past few months, we have been actively testing the compatibility of our RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX offering with Mono. We are extremely happy that our joint work with Novell will allow customers to build compelling high-performance ASP.NET AJAX-based applications and run them on Linux using Mono 2.4."

MonoDevelop delivers new tools to build .NET applications on Linux

MonoDevelop 2.0 enables developers to write desktop and ASP.NET Web applications on Linux, port .NET applications created with Microsoft* Visual Studio to Linux* and Mac OS X*, and maintain a single code base for all three platforms. MonoDevelop provides tools to simplify and streamline .NET application development on Linux, including:

  --  Improved ASP.NET and C# 3.0 support - The MonoDevelop code editor now
      offers an improved developer experience with improved code navigation,
      source outlining, and support for code completion in C# 3.0, ASP.NET,
      XML and HTML. Additionally, the MonoDevelop ASP.NET editor provides
      support for developing with master pages and custom web controls.
  --  Built-in debugger - The MonoDevelop debugger supports both debugging
      Mono-based applications as well as native applications, empowering
      developers to quickly locate and resolve issues in their codebase from
      directly within the development environment.

  --  Interoperability and capability improvements - MonoDevelop now uses
      MSBuild-style project files to increase interoperability with Visual
      Studio. Web projects are now also compatible with Visual Studio 2008
      and Visual Web Developer 2008 SP1, providing more options for
      developers who want to build and deploy their web applications on both
      Windows* and Linux.


  Mono 2.4 streamlines .NET development on Linux

Mono 2.4 enables ISVs, independent developers, and corporate developers to run .NET client and server applications on Linux across a range of hardware architectures, including the mainframe. Additionally, with the recent introduction of SUSE Linux Enterprise Mono Extension, customers and ISVs can also receive full support, security and upgrades when using Mono in the enterprise. New features available in Mono 2.4 include:

  --  Performance improvements and runtime innovations - A new code
      generation engine greatly improves the performance of executing .NET
      applications on the Mono runtime, while managed Single Instruction,
      Multiple Data (SIMD) extensions enable developers to take advantage of
      hardware acceleration without having to program in lower-level
      languages. Additional runtime innovations, such as full ahead-of-time
      (AOT) compilation, bring Mono-based applications to new platforms,
      including the Apple* iPhone*.
  --  Support for the latest features of ASP.NET - ASP.NET developers
      targeting Linux can now leverage the latest ASP.NET features,
      including ASP.NET 3.5 extensions, new web controls, ASP.NET routing
      APIs, and ASP.NET AJAX. Mono 2.4 can also host applications built
      using the Microsoft ASP.NET Model View Controller (MVC) framework,
      released earlier this month.

  --  Hosting pre-compiled Websites - Mono now hosts ASP.NET Websites and
      applications which have been pre-compiled on .NET. This reduces
      startup times, enables ISVs to distribute web applications without
      distributing source code, and greatly improves Mono's support of
      ASP.NET sites built with Visual Basic.

MonoDevelop 2.0 and Mono 2.4 are available now and can be downloaded at www.mono-project.com/downloads. For more information about the Mono project, visit www.mono-project.com.

Web 2.0 Expo is March 31- April 3, 2009 in San Francisco. Novell will be on the show floor at booth 311.

About the Mono Project

The Mono Project is an open source initiative sponsored by Novell to develop an open source version of the Microsoft .NET development framework. Hosted at www.mono-project.com, the Mono project provides all the necessary software to develop and run .NET client and server applications on Linux, Solaris*, Mac* OS X*, Windows and Unix. Mono has an active and enthusiastic contributing community and is positioned to become the leading choice for development of Linux applications.

About Novell

Novell, Inc. (NASDAQ:NOVL) delivers the best engineered, most interoperable Linux platform and a portfolio of integrated IT management software that helps customers around the world reduce cost, complexity and risk. With our infrastructure software and ecosystem of partnerships, Novell harmoniously integrates mixed IT environments, allowing people and technology to work as one. For more information, visit www.novell.com.

Novell, Mono, and SUSE are registered trademarks of Novell, Inc. in the United States and other countries. *All third party marks are the property of their respective owners.