Microsoft Corp. is taking steps to embrace and extend another standard development technology, this time in the modeling arena.

The Redmond, Wash., company is developing its own model-driven architecture for a future release of its Visual Studio .Net development environment. The new architecture will be based on the UML (Unified Modeling Language) standard, sources said.

Chief Software Architect and Chairman Bill Gates has publicly described the company’s goals to add support for model-driven development to Microsoft products leading up to the release of the company’s “Longhorn” operating system, expected in 2005.

UML is a standard modeling language for documenting data and processes in software systems. Rational Software Corp., now a part of IBM, led the development of the standard.

[eWeek]