Looking at Microsoft Expression Studio and Silverlight, it seems to ME at least that Microsoft is taking careful aim at the entire line of Adobe products as they relate to web development specifically.

...up until now, Adobe has had a free hand at the wheel with their visions of the future regarding Rich Internet Application development.

Those days are over, methinks.

Expression Studio includes:

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Expression Web

Microsoft® Expression® Web is a professional design tool to create modern, standards-based sites that deliver superior quality on the Web.

(This is the product that Front Page evolved into)

Standards-based Web Sites
Create CSS-based, XHTML 1.0 Transitional-conforming Web sites by default. Work better across browsers, simplifying deployment and maintenance. Configure flexible schema settings to support all combinations of HTML, XHTML, Strict, Transitional, Frameset and CSS 1.0, 2.0, and 2.1 plus browser-specific schemas. Validate your site with compatibility and accessibility reporting and against Section 508 and W3C Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

CSS Based Layout
Generate elegant, modern CSS layouts with state-of-the-art surface design tools. Directly manipulate positioning, sizing, margins and padding. A sophisticated CSS rendering engine inside gives you the confidence to make design decisions on the fly. Try out CSS styles on the page with drag-and-drop style management, and migrate them to a central repository. Typing aids and IntelliSense® in the Code View make your process efficient and fast.

Rich Data Presentation
Build and format views of industry-standard XML data using drag-and-drop tools for quick visualization. An XPath Expression Builder allows you to create complex queries, and XSL Transform (XSLT) support gives you the flexibility to present data any way you want. XML data can be retrieved and presented via live RSS feeds that match your site's formatting.

Powerful Server Technology
Harness the power of ASP.NET 2.0 to transform your sites into dynamic, interactive Web applications. No code data binding required with integrated support for server and user controls. Inserting and configuring ASP.NET controls is a snap with the controls toolbox, properties grid, and on-control "action menus." ASP.NET Master Pages make site-wide changes quick and easy.

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Expression Blend

Microsoft® Expression Blend™ is the professional design tool to create engaging web-connected experiences for Windows.

Efficient Collaboration
Work together in a friction-free environment, sharing projects, code, and designs for better productivity and quality. Quickly build stunning prototypes, and then turn them over to developers with confidence. Your designs can be used intact in the final product so you keep creative control. Developers no longer have to try to recreate them; play the hero and rid the world of "developer art." Open existing Visual Studio projects to re-design and re-skin the applications.

Tools for Creativity
Expression Blend opens the door to creating elegant and compelling user interface designs using a full spectrum of media types, including vector and pixel art, video, audio, text, 3D content, and animation. Work inside a rich, real-time design environment optimized for creative professionals to shorten the distance between idea and execution.

Codeless Interactivity
Add interactivity to your designs without writing code-just add fully customizable controls, from simply-styled buttons to sophisticated custom listviews. Easily connect interface elements to each other or to live data. Layout interfaces using containers that adapt your content and interface to various screen resolutions and form factors. Just drag and drop to add developer-written custom code or controls to your application.

Deliver Better Experiences
Deliver applications that are more usable and achieve greater end-user satisfaction and productivity. Leverage the full power of the desktop and Internet to provide your audience with big-impact, high-performance user experiences that drive brand recognition and repeat use. Easily create localizable and accessible applications for global audiences.

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Expression Design

Microsoft® Expression® Design is a professional illustration and graphic design tool that lets you build compelling elements for both Web and desktop application user interfaces.

Flexible Vector Drawing
Use Expression Design's powerful vector drawing and editing tools to explore new artistic possibilities and create compelling graphic designs and illustrations. Integrate your vector artwork and bitmap images in the same document to create hybrid compositions.

Dynamic Live Effects
Take advantage of Live Effects to apply high-quality effects and filters such as Bevel, Emboss, and Gaussian Blur to any vector or bitmapped object. Then change the effect, or change the object, with the confidence that Live Effects are always non-destructive and fully editable.

Expanded Workflow
Bring your existing vector-based artwork from other popular graphic tools into Expression Design along with JPEG, PNG, and GIF bitmap files. Then export in a wide variety of formats, including XAML code that you can easily use when building next-generation software with Expression Blend. Or seamlessly copy and paste your images into Microsoft Office while preserving transparency.

Innovative Design Environment
Deliver applications that are more usable and achieve greater end-user satisfaction and productivity. Leverage the full power of the desktop and Internet to provide your audience with big-impact, high-performance user experiences that drive brand recognition and repeat use. Easily create localizable and accessible applications for global audiences.

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Expression Media

Microsoft® Expression® Media is a professional asset management tool to visually catalog and organize all your digital assets for effortless retrieval and presentation.

Effortless Organization
Make digital asset management easy—just drag and drop to import more than 100 different media formats, including digital RAW files. Start working with your files right away, while Expression Media quickly creates full-screen previews. Store your files anywhere: shared folders, CDs, hard drives, or DVDs; and use integrated search tools to find them in seconds. Wherever they are, Expression Media will keep track of them all. Even when your originals are offline, visual catalogs allow you to browse, search, and annotate your assets.

Seamless Workflow Integration
Stick with the workflow that works for you and Expression Media will fill in the gaps. Support for RAW formats from the most popular cameras and industry-standard metadata formats means that your metadata is already there. Keep keywords consistent with custom dictionaries—just drag and drop to quickly tag thousands of files. Rename an entire folder of files or change their format easily with batch conversion. Use flexible scripting tools to get tedious tasks out your way. Make sure all your precious digital assets are protected with built-in archiving and backup features.

Image and Video Editing
Save time by taking care of basic image editing tasks, like rotating, cropping, and resizing, from inside Expression Media. Color management profiles are preserved throughout. You can quickly adjust levels, sharpness, brightness, or color balance yourself. With Expression Encoder, re-encoding video is as easy as converting images. Apply filters or add watermark logos to your video files, or re-encode video for optimized playback on the Web or Windows Media™ handheld devices.

Professional Presentation
Impress your audience with slide shows, videos, and Web galleries. When it's time to deliver, Expression Media can export your assets in exactly the format and size your clients need, with dozens of professionally designed presentation templates. With Expression Encoder, you can convert and publish video to reach a broad, cross-platform audience.

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Expression Encoder

Microsoft® Expression® Encoder, a feature of Expression Media, offers encoding, enhancement, and publishing of rich media experiences to Microsoft Silverlight.

Flexible Encoding Workflows
Encode a wide array of file-based media content, including QuickTime, AVI, MPEG, WMV, and more using the designer friendly Expression-standard user interface. You can also control the Expression Encoder engine from the command line. Produce live webcasts with multiple live and file-based sources that can be mixed and switched in real-time for streaming and on-demand viewing.

Richer Media Enhancement
Customize your media assets to match your brand or target your audience. Add leaders and trailers, watermarks, crop, scale and trim. Add Metadata and enhance your content with chapter markers, event markers and captions.

Publish Perfect Experiences
Deliver high quality VC-1 encoded content wrapped in a Silverlight player template directly from Expression Encoder. Dial in your encoding settings, save every aspect of your Expression Encoder job as a preset and then take advantage of third party hardware acceleration to get the highest quality result in a hurry.

Posted by Michael at March 12, 2008 01:18 PM