PowerBuilder provides 12 new key features including open database support, rewritten DataWindow and Visual Inheritance for WPF and User Objects. Sybase will ship PowerBuilder with two self-contained modules, one designed for Windows 32-based development and a comprehensive module for developing Windows Presentation Foundation-based applications on top of the Microsoft Visual Studio shell. 

For those of us who have been in application development since before the 1990s, we remember PowerBuilder as the premier client/server development environment.  Its affiliation with Microsoft is an interesting twist for this venerable tool.  While PowerBuilder has seen better days, it still remains a viable legacy IDE and language for building distributed applications.

Find additional information about signing up for the PowerBuilder 12 beta program here: www.sybase.com/powerbuilder12beta