Today's Microsoft keynote address at the Professional Developer's Conference (PDC) blew away many attendees with the announcement of the Microsoft Expression Suite.
The new suite includes 3 programs along with extensions for Visual Studio 2005. The programs are:
Microsoft blogger, Robert Scoble, has made it clear that Sparkle doesn't compete with Flash. Rather, Sparkle is a development environment. If anything, it competes with Visual Studio.
But Microsoft made it clear that the idea behind Expression is to allow software developers and graphic designers to be able to work together more seamlessly.
"Now, designers can create the full application interface and hand it over to the developer to work with directly," said a Microsoft spokesman. "Previously, developers would receive a mock-up of the application and then work to try to recreate the designer's intent. Now, the designer becomes part of the development process directly."
Expression appears to be part of a larger Microsoft strategy to help get Windows developers to create software that isn't just functional but more polished and easier to use. Expression aims to be the mechanism to accomplish this.
View: Brad's live PDC blogging
The new suite includes 3 programs along with extensions for Visual Studio 2005. The programs are:
- Acrylic. This has been in beta but based on how it was demoed isn't so much of a Photoshop competitor but rather as a focused designer tool for software and web development.
- Sparkle. A visual design tool that lets designers create interfaces without having to write any code.
- Quartz. A web-oriented tool for more easily taking rich content and putting them on the web.
Microsoft blogger, Robert Scoble, has made it clear that Sparkle doesn't compete with Flash. Rather, Sparkle is a development environment. If anything, it competes with Visual Studio.
But Microsoft made it clear that the idea behind Expression is to allow software developers and graphic designers to be able to work together more seamlessly.
"Now, designers can create the full application interface and hand it over to the developer to work with directly," said a Microsoft spokesman. "Previously, developers would receive a mock-up of the application and then work to try to recreate the designer's intent. Now, the designer becomes part of the development process directly."
Expression appears to be part of a larger Microsoft strategy to help get Windows developers to create software that isn't just functional but more polished and easier to use. Expression aims to be the mechanism to accomplish this.
View: Brad's live PDC blogging
Windows Vista Starter Edition
- Only sold in emerging markets
- Very feature limited
- Only 3 simultaneous applications running
- Equivalent to XP Home
- Includes firewall, parental controls, Security Center, Movie Maker, Photo Library and more
- For first time buyer / budget conscious
- Everything from Vista Home Basic
- Adds DVD video authoring, HDTV support, DVD ripping support
- Similar to current XP Media Center edition but with added features
- Aimed at the business consumer
- Can join domain, has IIS web server
- Akin to XP Pro
- Designed for small businesses without IT staff
- Backup and Shadow Copy support, Castle and server-join networking, and PC fax and scanning utility
- Pre-paid access to the Windows Live! Small Business or Microsoft Office Live! subscription services
- Optimized for the enterprise
- Ships with Virtual PC & the multi-language user interface (MUI)
- Aimed at business decision makers, IT managers and decision makers, and information workers/general business users.
- "The best operating system ever offered for a personal PC"
- Superset of both Vista Home Premium and Vista Pro Edition
- Podcasting application, Game Performance Tweaker, possible free music/movie downloads
Acrylic wasn't really made to compete with Photoshop.
Sparkle wasn't really made to compete with Flash.
Quartz wasn't really made to compete with... Dreamweaver?
Either way, if Microsoft doesn't break anything else (i.e. standards, proprietary code) with these extensions for Visual Studio, I'm all for it.
that is sweet!!!! looking forward to it.. now no one can complain about my crappy ui's anymore hahaha
http://www.microsoft.com/products/expressi...en/default.aspx
A lot of good info there
http://www.microsoft.com/products/expression/en/demos.aspx
Looks like Microsoft are really making a push to set them apart in the next few years, these tools will compliment the Vista experience because developers of third-party products will have the ability to make Vista UI's just like Microsoft.
Any videos anywhere of them demoing this software?
http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=115387
It's great that it even supports 3D and animations!
Before this, no way I'd start design Avalon apps via code, but if this indeed generates XAML code, it's great!
Funny enough I was just discussing exactly how this was missing in a Neowin thread.
Not quite sure I get what the point of Quartz is. What "rich content" are we talking about? What format?
I recall Avalon apps can at least not be browser hosted anymore since beta 1?
Last edited by 21023 on 14 Sep 2005 - 22:35
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=46CEF4B1-7E80-474F-AECD-ACB255902B82&displaylang=en
Earlier I thought it was just a kind of crappy vector editor competing with regular art tools. :p
These kind of apps *can* be compared to e.g. Flash, but they're aimed for completely different markets. Flash is there mostly to enhance the visuals on web sites, while Avalon is there to enhance the look of full-fledged Windows applications.
Come on guys, if Microsoft is ripping another company off, its for the courts to decide.
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