Microsoft showcases Expression Studio suite

Software giant Microsoft has showcased its latest software product named Expression Studio suite. It is an integrated suite of tools for designers and places Microsoft in direct competition with Adobe.

The company announced the Expression Studio suite yesterday, which consists of four tools. Three of these tools had already been revealed and the company added another one yesterday.

In addition, Microsoft also showcased a new Community Technology Preview of its Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere technology, which aims to take on Adobe’s Flash technology.

The Microsoft Expression Studio consists of applications including Expression Web, Expression Blend, Expression Design and Expression Graphic Designer in addition to a newly added tool Expression Media.

Microsoft said that this application suite would ship in the retail market by the mid of next year. Chris Howard, an analyst with Burton Group spoke about this product: “Now, a graphic designer using Expression Design hands off XAML-based assets to an interaction designer. The interaction designer combines those assets into a user experience, using Expression Blend, where the structure of the solution is created. That solution is opened by a software engineer in Visual Studio and complex application logic is added. No more Photoshop-to-Visio-to-Visual Studio reinterpretations. The result: final product that is truer to original design and less time wasted redoing work because of incompatible tools and asset formats.”