Microsoft Expression Studio 2 Ships, Advancing Superior Developer and Designer Collaboration

Fri, 02 May 2008 09:28:52 GMT

The newest release of the suite of tools includes revolutionary capabilities for creative professionals including Silverlight functionality, PHP support and Adobe Photoshop import capabilities.

Dublin: May 2nd, 2008 - Microsoft today delivered on its commitment to rapid innovation for the newest Microsoft platforms and latest Web technologies by announcing the release of Expression Studio 2.

The suite of professional design tools includes Expression Web 2, Expression Blend 2, Expression Design 2, Expression Media 2 and Expression Encoder 2 and works seamlessly with Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008, solving the age-old designer and developer workflow challenge. The innovations in Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML), used by both Expression Studio and Visual Studio, allow for unprecedented designer-developer collaboration for the creation of both standards-based and Microsoft Silverlight-enhanced Web experiences as well as Windows Vista and .NET Framework 3.5 client applications.

In line with the team’s commitment to short release cycles, Expression Studio 2 is coming to market one year after the last release with major updates to each product. The products together contain more than 100 new features and introduce new Microsoft Silverlight functionality for creating stunning cross-browser, cross-platform Web experiences. Key features include the following:

Expression Web 2 adds support for PHP and Adobe Photoshop import based on customer feedback.
Expression Blend 2, in addition to Silverlight support, adds vertex animation and an improved user interface with a new split design/XAML view.
Expression Design 2 adds improved exporting functionality including the ability to export slices.
Expression Media 2 is a robust asset management solution for professional photographers and other creative professionals. It adds support for the latest file formats supported by Microsoft Office 2007 and Microsoft Office for Mac 2008.
Expression Encoder 2 is now a core offering of the suite. It allows creative and Web professionals to optimize almost any type of video content quickly for publishing on the Web, either in streaming video, rich-media advertising or other Web 2.0 projects.

This groundbreaking release brings creative professionals fully into the application development process, accelerating time to market, minimizing resource use and improving return on investment for new projects. A full overview of features is available at http://www.microsoft.com/expression/features.

“This release of Expression Studio 2 is focused on providing a great user experience that enables developers and designers to work together to build great applications,” said Sean Foley, Head of the Developer and Platform Group at Microsoft Ireland. “This latest release of Expression Studio, combined with the recent platform releases of Silverlight and Windows Presentation Foundation, enables designers and developers to build incredible end-user applications.”

Full product information is available at: http://www.microsoft.com/expression.

News from Microsoft Ireland: Design

Microsoft Expression Studio 2 Ships, Advancing Superior Developer and Designer Collaboration