Microsoft has expanded its Visual Studio 2005 Team System with the introduction of Visual Studio Team Edition for Database Professionals.

The offering is designed to provide tools that reduce communication barriers and complexity across software development teams.

"All too frequently, schisms exist between database teams and development staff, leading to ineffective collaboration, inadequate project and code management, poor quality, and cost increases," said Melinda Ballou, programme director at IDC's Application Life Cycle Management service.

"Avoidable problems occur due to these gaps in communication. Users on both sides need tools and processes to facilitate coordination and management across groups and skill sets, to increase efficiency and improve software quality earlier in the life cycle."

The release marks Microsoft's latest step in the deployment of its forthcoming next-generation version of Visual Studio codenamed Orcas.

"One of the main issues in software development today is a lack of collaboration among members of a software development team and beyond," said S. Somasegar, corporate vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft.

"Our goal is to ensure that all members of the IT organisation can gain more visibility into, and greater predictability of, the software development process."