Microsoft is readying a beta of a new SKU of its next generation of Visual Studio, intended for those who want to embed it into their own tools.

The company will offer what it calls Visual Studio Shell, a scaled-down version of its flagship developer tool suite. Microsoft launched Visual Studio Shell at its TechEd conference in Orlando.

Visual Studio Shell is intended to allow developers to build Visual Studio functionality atop their own vertical tools, as well as integrating various languages such as Fortran, Cobol, Ruby and PHP. Microsoft will release a beta version this summer. When it ships with Orcas, now officially dubbed Visual Studio 2008, Visual Studio Shell will be free.