May 01, 2008, 8:26 PM — Microsoft Thursday unveiled a version of its toolset for Web and multimedia
designers that includes the first native support for its Silverlight technology
across all of the products in the suite.
Expression Studio 2 includes five products: Expression Web for Web design;
Expression Blend for multimedia and 3D design; Expression Design for graphic
design; Expression Media for storing and sharing multimedia assets; and Expression
Encoder for video encoding. The new release marks the first time Encoder is
in the suite as a full-fledged product, said Wayne Smith, Microsoft group product
manager for Expression Studio.
In the new release, all of the products now have support for Silverlight, Microsoft's
multimedia runtime for running live and streaming video on the Web. Previously,
only Expression Web had support for Silverlight, but it was very limited, Smith
said.
In a sense, this is the first full release of Expression, as Silverlight is
a key component of Microsoft's design strategy and overall plan to compete with
Adobe's Creative Suite and its Flash technology. Expression Studio has only
been in the market about a year, but Smith said the company is not sharing customer-adoption
information. However, he said that judging from the interest in preview versions
of Expression Studio 2, the inclusion of Silverlight should increase sales of
Expression overall.
Other improvements to Expression Studio 2 include support for PHP development
in Expression Web and improvements to video-file compression in Expression Encoder,
Wayne said.
As part of the release, Microsoft also in June will begin offering a new subscription
for the product that gives designers another way to purchase the software besides
the current packaged option. Microsoft previously unveiled the subscription
for Expression at its MIX 08 conference in Las Vegas in March.
In addition to giving designers Expression Studio 2, the professional subscription
also will include a standard edition of Visual Studio and Office; Office Visio
Professional; Windows XP; Windows Vista Business Edition; Virtual PC and Parallels
Desktop for Mac. The subscription costs US$999 a year, but there will be a discount
on that when customers renew their subscriptions after the first year, Smith
said.
The traditional licensed version of Expression Studio 2 is available for purchase
or upgrade from the first version of Expression on Microsoft's
Web site now. It also should be available by mid-month in retailers such
as Best Buy with an estimated retail price of $699. To encourage Adobe users
to switch to Expression, Microsoft also is offering upgrade deals; information
is available on the Web site.
Aside from Expression Design 2, all of the suite's tools are available for
individual purchase. Expression Blend 2 is available for $499, Expression Web
2 is available for $299, Expression Media 2 for $199 and Expression Encoder
2 for $199.
