Good news for Microsoft Technology enthusiasts!
Microsoft now understands that they should open up their products to the developer community in order to sustain in the market. Thanks to the success of the various open source initiatives, this forced Microsoft also, to offer Visual Studio Express and SQL Server 2005 Express for FREE!
Read more at Microsoft.com: Express Editions Download and Express Editions FAQ. BTW, Microsoft E-Learning offers Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Courses FREE for a limited time!
What are the Express Editions?
The Express Editions are an expansion of the Visual Studio and SQL Server product line to include lightweight, easy-to-use, and easy-to-learn tools for hobbyists, students, and novice developers who want to build dynamic Windows applications, Web sites, and Web services. The Express products consist of:
Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition, a lightweight tool for building dynamic Web sites and Web services
Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition, Visual C# 2005 Express Edition, Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition, and Visual J# 2005 Express Edition, targeted programming tools for students and hobbyists who wish to learn the fundamentals of Windows programming
SQL Server 2005 Express Edition, a database for building data-driven applications
now google emerging as a competitor to microsoft. read somewhere google promoting firefox (i see the button in this blog too!) and doing usability study of the browser for tabbed navigation.
Oh really? That sounds good to me. I hope Microsoft will give away office 2005 also for free or at least make it cheaper.
It seems Google and Sun have plans to improve OpenOffice.org and promote as a competitor to Microsoft Office or the online Office Live. I really hope that the new versions of these products will be totally compatible and support XML format for better document management.
hey one more gossip which i m hearing is that microsoft may give some specific version of Vista for free for all those who owns XP! some time back i had posted on this in blog!
yeah, that’s right. Now everyone understand the importance of collective effort of developers, though, I feel, Microsoft is late to join. Developers Ki Jai 🙂
hello.. came across the blog from technorati under kerala blogs..
about microsoft and express.. isn’t everybody trying to attract a developer community these days? probably that is a learning they all had.. it is good to have a loyal group to spread the word.. heard that oracle 10g is also given for free in a limited edition..