K2 blackpearl Now Supports Visual Studio 2010

Redmond, WA, July 19, 2010 --(PR.com)-- Software maker K2, a Visual Studio Industry Partner, announced general availability of its process designer with Visual Studio 2010 support.

K2 Designer for Visual Studio 2010 is a component of K2 blackpearl 4.5, a complete workflow and BPM platform with industry-best integration into Microsoft technologies. It enables process designers and professional developers to create or extend sophisticated workflow and BPM processes while remaining in their favorite development environment — Microsoft Visual Studio.

“Many of our users are proficient with Visual Studio,” said K2’s Olaf Wagner, senior vice president for product management. “The K2 Designer for Visual Studio reduces the amount of code they need to write and enables them to become more productive creating workflows and process-driven applications.”

K2 software lowers the learning curve, speeds adoption and lets users “get down to the business of streamlining their organizations,” Wagner said.

K2 blackpearl is fully integrated into the Visual Studio 2010 project system, featuring seamless integration with Team Foundation Server and MSBuild. It utilizes a Windows Presentation Foundation-based canvas that allows power users and developers to visually design processes. The K2 wizards generate Windows Workflow Foundation schedules and activities, which can be customized in the Visual Studio environment.

“Microsoft is pleased that K2, a Visual Studio Industry Partner, has invested early in supporting Visual Studio 2010 and our next-generation application development platform, and is today shipping K2 Designer for Visual Studio 2010,” said Eddie Amos, general manager of Developer Platform and Tools Marketing at Microsoft Corp. “Products like K2 Designer for Visual Studio 2010 help customers to simplify their development process from design to deployment when using Microsoft products like Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.”

K2 application developers can customize any process by seamlessly incorporating .NET 3.5 and .NET 4 code into the same process definition, providing significant application longevity and, at the same time, leveraging the latest Microsoft platform technologies.

“As we adopt new Microsoft offerings such as .NET Framework 4, Microsoft Silverlight 4 and Microsoft SharePoint 2010 into the core of our K2 products, being able to continuously improve our own developers’ productivity is key,” Wagner said. “Visual Studio gives us new and improved tooling for SharePoint, Silverlight 4, Windows Presentation Foundation 4 and database development, improved unit and performance testing capabilities, and new runtime intelligence tooling, allowing us to continuously improve our code based on real-time data.”

About K2 (www.k2.com)
The K2 software platform provides workflow and BPM tools that improve business efficiency. All kinds of organizations are using K2 to streamline operations, save money and reduce risk.

K2-based solutions are deployed by a growing number of the global Fortune 100. K2 is a division of SourceCode Technology Holdings, Inc. based in Redmond, Washington, and has offices all over the world.

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