What to use to develop a tool

[Guest]

Hi community,
This is a very basic question, but haunting me right now.
We are planning to develop an integration tool for a CRM system. Our
intention is to develop the tool in MicroSoft platform besides Java. Using
webservices will be the core. So, lot of XML stuff is expected. There will
not be any database used as product is a tool.
Questions: What type of project (COM/DLL...) and which language is prefered
in VisualStudio.net? What will be required to build the tool? What are the
packing (free !) tools available for this kind of products? What is the
minimum recommended infrastructure? Please help. Thanks

 

[clintonG]

Visual Studio.NET with C#.