News
Microsoft Changes Tune on Expression
Microsoft announced today that its Expression Web product will immediately be
included as part of the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) Premium subscription.
Later this year, subscribers will gain access to Expression Blend, a tool for
creating rich user interfaces for Web and desktop applications, the company
says.
The move follows an outcry from developers, who had slammed the company for
initially charging subscribers a $99 upgrade fee for Expression Web, which shipped
in December 2006.
S. "Soma" Somasegar, corporate vice president of Microsoft's developer
division, acknowledged the public backlash in a post on his blog.
"When we announced Expression Studio last December, we saw great excitement
from both the design and development community," he writes in part. "Following
the announcement we received a lot of questions about why we did not include
some of these products, particularly Expression Web, within customers' MSDN
subscriptions. In hearing this feedback, my team started looking into the matter
in more detail...One common theme emerged, and that is developers could better
collaborate with designers if they had some experience with the new tools the
designers are using."
Microsoft has positioned the Expression line as tools for designers, as opposed
to developers. Its stated goal is to ease collaboration between the two worker
types. Projects started in Expression can be easily shipped over to Visual Studio,
where programmers can work on the plumbing.
But MSDN customers complained that Web developers often double as designers.
That made Redmond's decision to charge them $99 for an upgrade a "slap
in the face," .NET developer Robert McLaws told RDN at the time.
Tuesday's news has McLaws in a happier mood, however.
"Huzzah! Microsoft has finally resolved the disconnect between Expression's
marketing and its distribution," McLaws wrote in an e-mail to RDN.
"Microsoft may not always get it right the first time, but they always
do eventually. It's unfortunate that some developers who now qualify for free
copies already purchased the full product, but oh well. I'm just glad I waited.
I was going to give in this week and buy it."
However, Microsoft isn't currently planning to make the entire Expression line
of products part of MSDN Premium. Somasegar writes that since Expression Design
and Expression Media are not specifically geared for developing applications,
Microsoft feels "they fall outside the current scope of MSDN subscriptions."
(Design, now in beta 2, is an illustration and graphic design tool; Media is
an asset management system.)
But those holding premium subscriptions to Visual Studio Team Suite will get
the entire Expression line, according to Somasegar's post.
About the Author
Chris Kanaracus is the news editor for Redmond Developer News.