Great decision: Expression Blend and Expression Web will be in MSDN
In case you haven’t already heard it from elsewhere we have decided to include Expression Blend and Expression Web in MSDN Premium subscriptions, and the other two Expression products (Expression Design and Expression Media) in the team suite subscription.
This is fantastic news if you’re an MSDN subscriber. Expression Blend, a tool that helps you construct slick and impressive UIs for WPF, is a great product and I know developers have been itching to get their hands on it. It’s currently in beta, scheduled for release in Q2 of this year. Although it’s actually aimed at designers it is useful for developers to see it and understand it as part of the attraction is how well it works hand-in-glove with Visual Studio.
Expression Web is a top-notch web development tool, released in December last year. I’ve spent some time using it and can confirm that a) it’s in a different world (a much better world) than Frontpage – this is a pro web design tool and b) it handles CSS better than anything I’ve ever seen.
Originally we weren’t going to include these in MSDN however we had feedback from the community (people like you) that caused us to re-evaluate that decision which lead to this announcement. To my mind this is a terrific example of us listening to the community and doing the right thing, and I'm really glad about the outcome.
Take a look at Soma's blog entry for more detail.
We will be running a number of developer events over the coming months that will include some coverage of these products so keep an eye on www.microsoft.com/uk/events for details. And I'll blog them too of course :-)
Comments
Anonymous
April 03, 2007
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April 03, 2007
Expression Design is only in the team suite? why?Anonymous
April 03, 2007
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April 04, 2007
What's this Ian, a second blog that has nothing to do with the Developer Launch Competition??? I'd stray back to the launch if I were you, you'll be experiancing terrible withdrawal symptoms.Anonymous
April 04, 2007
Does anyone know if it will appear on MSDNAA?Anonymous
April 04, 2007
Jones - yes it is in MSDNAA.Anonymous
April 04, 2007
Awesome stuff - thanks for this!Anonymous
April 04, 2007
By the way my comment above that "the others will be there shortly" is nonsense. They will be there when they move to RTM eg Q2 this year for Blend.Anonymous
April 17, 2007
Ian: I was wondering if you know whether expression blend will become available in technet? Thanks, MarkAnonymous
April 26, 2007
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May 01, 2007
Hi Ian, Just a quick question. I am at work just now and my collegues and I have been looking at the expression studio as well as silverlight. We have recently bought new computers with Vista installed as well as buying visual studio 2005 professional. I noticed that for example to run expression blend 2 you need orcas installed in order to use silverlight. Does that mean in order to developer silverlight applications - we will need the Orcas version of visual studio? Or will the expression packages and silverlight be 100% compatible with Visual Studio 2005 Professional. Thanks, MarkAnonymous
May 02, 2007
Hi Mark - Silverlight development support will be in the Orcas version of Visual Studio. As for Blend, you can download an update to Expression Blend v1 to allow you to target Silverlight. I'm not aware whether we plan to include support in VS 2005 but I'll double check and let you know.Anonymous
May 02, 2007
Excellent thanks for the reply. I would appreciate it if you could find out about the VS 2005 support. Thanks, Mark