Microsoft Expression Studio: An Overview

Microsoft Expression Studio is what you would use if you wanted to create a web site that is cross-browser compatible or a windows application that meets the latest standards.

The Microsoft Expression Studio product comes with multiple products. You can get any of these multiple products by itself. I am going to give you a brief overview for those of you wondering exactly what is Microsoft Expression?

What is Microsoft Expression?

Microsoft Expression consists of tools that are used to design and build web sites and windows applications. The main product is called Microsoft Expression Studio which consists of the following "sub-products": Expression Web 2 (web design tool for creating standards-based sites that use ASP.NET or PHP), Microsoft Expression Blend 2 (tool to create very pretty interface for the end user using .net 3.5 and Silverlight technologies), Expression Design 2 (sort of like Photoshop, this tool is a illustration and graphic design tool aimed at building web and windows application interfaces), Expression Media 2 (asset management tool that presents the data as reports), Expression Encoder 2 (tool for importing and encoding video files), and finally Visual Studio Standard 2008 (development environment for making web sites and windows applications).

Who is Using Microsoft Expression?

People that design and create web sites and windows applications are the ones most likely to use Microsoft Expression. The thing that stands out about Microsoft Expression is that the compliance to the latest web and application standards is a strong focus. If you wanted to make a website that is viewable exactly the same on all popular browsers, you would use Expression Web 2 of the Microsoft Expression Studio Suite (it has built in compliance checking and offers a lot of options depending on how compliant you would like your web site to be).

How Can I use Microsoft Expression?

If you are building a personal web site or a Windows application for personal use, then Microsoft Expression might not be the best tool to use if you want to get the most for your money. Microsoft Expression is probably aimed more toward products that are going to need to meet the latest web and application standards, especially for company web sites and their custom applications. There is a trial version of Microsoft Expression you can download, if you want to try it and see if it's for you.

For more detail on Microsoft Expression, I would suggest going to: http://www.microsoft.com/expression/

This tool is available for anyone at the official Microsoft Expression site: http://www.microsoft.com/expression/