Microsoft Expression Web 2

Microsoft Expression Web 2 is a professional design tool to create modern, standards-based sites and Web applications that use ASP.NET or PHP. Expression Web 2 is built to translate your visual layouts into fully compliant pages using your choice of versions of XHTML, CSS, XML and XSLT. Expression Web 2 is the first web design tool to offer deep support for both ASP.NET 3.5 and PHP which allows designers to collaborate with developers on web projects to make compelling sites.

Microsoft Expression Blend 2

Microsoft Expression Blend 2 is a professional design tool to create compelling user experiences and applications for Windows using either the .NET Framework 3.0, .NET framework 3.5 (which both include the Windows Presentation Foundation), or for the web with Silverlight.

Microsoft Expression Design 2

Microsoft Expression Design 2 is a professional illustration and graphic design tool that lets you build compelling elements for both Web and desktop application user interfaces.

Microsoft Expression Media 2

Expression Media 2 is a professional digital asset management tool to visually catalog and organize all of the elements associated with your creative workflow. Expression Media 2 is based on the iView MediaPro product acquired by Microsoft in June of 2006.

Microsoft Expression Encoder 2

Expression Encoder is a professional encoding tool that offers enhancement, encoding, and publishing of rich video experiences with Microsoft Silverlight. Convert and compress multiple video formats to SMPTE standard VC-1 video for mobile, web, and HD video scenarios. For streamlined workflow, create branded templates with Expression Blend, and encode on the desktop or server to guarantee a consistent viewing experience on Windows, Mac, and devices.

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MICROSOFT XPS

If Adobe were not feeling enough discomfort with the aforementioned products, now Microsoft is telling people that they are developing a product: XPS. XPS is a fixed and open document format built on top of XML. Microsoft has said that it will make it available royalty-free.

XPS will allow users to share, print and archive paginated-layout documents. In essence, it's a Page Description Language (PDL). XPS will offer significantly improved screen-to-print fidelity as well as the high fidelity needs of the digital imaging marketplace.

Will it be a PDF killer? PDF is too pervasive to go away. In fact, Microsoft has stated that it intends to support both the XPS format and the PDF format.

LINQ TECHNOLOGY

Microsoft has developed a new technology or foundational technologies that developers say could be revolutionary. LINQ, which stand for Language Integrated Query, is a tool set for .Net Framework that lets developers access data. Specifically, it is a set of extensions to the C# and Visual Basic languages that presents a unified programming method for querying XML, objects, relational data and other data types. Developers will be able to use these or other .Net Common Languages without having to know SQL or XQuery.

STUDIO EXPRESS AND WEB DEVELOPER EXPRESS

Microsoft has released it's Visual Studio 2008 developer tools. These are both sophisticated and expensive. However, there's a cheaper alternative for the non-professional. It's the Visual Studio Express Edition (free) and it's amazingly powerful. It also includes an express version of MS SQL Server 2008.

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