Borland is to release a new integrated development environment (IDE), making use of Microsoft's .Net Framework features, in the second quarter of this year.

The applications development company is the first to license Microsoft's .Net Framework Software Development Kit (SDK) which will form part of the new software.

Jason Vokes, Borland's European product line manager, told vnunet.com: "Borland is very well established in Java, which is a single language running on multiple platforms.

"By contrast this will be a single platform with multiple languages."

Licensing the Microsoft SDK means that it can be provided directly to users as part of the IDE package, cutting out the need for a 120MB download.

Vokes played down the level of competition with Microsoft's VisualStudio.Net IDE.

"Borland's IDE will operate in the same playground but not the same corner. It will be an independent application lifecycle solution that is fully compatible but adds significant value," he said.

Vokes confirmed that Borland remains totally committed to the Delphi developers.

A Delphi visual component library layer has been developed for .Net, allowing existing Win32 applications to migrate to .Net.

A further update to Delphi is promised in the next few weeks but, unlike the new IDE, Delphi will not access the .Net Framework tools.