Microsoft kills Visual Studio's Oracle data connection

[Mike]

Microsoft kills Visual Studio's Oracle data connection
By Gavin Clarke

Swift reaction: 'Sucks', 'shortsighted'

Full Story:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/18/microsoft_kills_oracle_connector/

Coders have reacted with disappointment and frustration to Microsoft's decision to cease development of a connector to Oracle in its .NET Framework, a move that looks like another budget cut.

Microsoft has said it will no longer develop OracleClient,or System.Data.OracleClient, with the up-coming .NET Framework 4.0. It will still be included with the framework but will be "marked as deprecated."

The .NET Framework 4.0 is the basis of Visual Studio 2010 - both due later this year - and therefore the programming model for new and recent versions of Windows. Oracle is the industry's number-one database in terms market share.

"We strongly recommend customers to use our partners' ADO.NET Provider for Oracle instead of continuing to use Microsoft's OracleClient for new application development," ADO.NET OracleClient program manager Himanshu Vasishth blogged. He added Microsoft would continue to provide bug fixes for "critical" issues in OracleClient and development of new applications using OracleClient would be supported.

. . .

Furthermore, there's a suggestion that Microsoft is killing its development efforts as part of the overall corporate strategy of cutting costs to get through the recession. Microsoft has been re-configuring product teams and cut projects and business units that are considered small and non-core but that, naturally, have a financial cost associated with them.

Full Story:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/18/microsoft_kills_oracle_connector/