There are hundreds of tools, methods, and technologies out there, and the development environment is more heterogeneous and complicated than ever," said David Anstey, president of Oracle Development Tools User Group (ODTUG), as he announced that Oracle and Microsoft will co-present at its annual conference, ODTUG Now! 2005, June 18-22, in New Orleans.

While corporate clashes between Oracle and Microsoft have in the past made a joint presentation out of the question, Anstey explained that two major changes have occurred: 1) ODTUG recently expanded its technical coverage to include non-Oracle third-party products and tools that develop applications for use with Oracle databases, thereby opening opportunities for companies such as Microsoft to present at the ODTUG conference, and 2) Oracle and Microsoft have entered into a partnership that allows Oracle developer tools to work with and within a Microsoft Visual Studio .NET environment.

Anstey describes the changing development environment like this: "The space in which ODTUG members operate has grown exponentially more complex. It is essential that we provide our members with education and training on a variety of development tools at our conference."

ODTUG Now! 2005 Conference Chair Bruce A. Bergman underlines that Oracle's products and Microsoft's will be side by side at the 5-day event: participants will return home with a CD of Oracle's Designer Developer Kit (DDK) and a CD of the latest Beta version of Microsoft Visual Studio 2005, he confirms.

ODTUG is an independent, not-for-profit, worldwide organization dedicated to enhancing "Oracle-centric" professionalism as well as methodology, software process management, analysis and modeling, data warehousing, business process design, and web development skills. Its Web site is www.odtug.com.