Microsoft is releasing the Beta 1 version of Visual Studio LightSwitch today. This product is a new addition to the Visual Studio family that enables developers of all skill level and organizational size to easily build business applications that target the desktop, cloud and Web. Here's some info from Jason Zander's blog:
When we introduced LightSwitch earlier this month we promised a broadly available beta of the product on 8/23. I’m happy to announce that LightSwitch Beta 1 is now available for download. I’ve included a detailed walk through (including setup instructions) to help you get your first LightSwitch application up and running. Before we do that, I want to answer a few of the most common questions I’ve been asked about the product.
Who Should Use LightSwitch?
LightSwitch is primarily targeted at developers who need to rapidly product business applications. It is part of the Visual Studio family and when you get into writing code you are in the VS IDE. At the same time we have found that most line of business applications follow a standard pattern (see Architecture below) and LightSwitch is optimized for helping you leverage those patterns.
Our goal with LightSwitch is to help you rapidly produce line of business applications by optimizing for the most common application patterns (data + screens + code). LightSwitch allows you to create desktop applications (the default) or browser applications.
Microsoft Visual Studio LightSwitch Beta 1