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Microsoft Underdog As Expression Web Takes On Dreamweaver

Author: AndrewWhiteman
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When Microsoft released Expression Web, a lot of people expected it to be an upgrade to FrontPage 2003. Instead, it turns out to be a very professional web development tool which looks set to be a serious rival to the current market leader, Adobe Dreamweaver CS3. It's interesting to see Microsoft in the role of underdog for a change but how will their new contender fare?

Like Dreamweaver, Expression Web forms part of a software bundle, in this case, Expression Studio. Microsoft were the ones who introduced the concept of software bundles, so no one can accuse them of copying the Adobe Creative Suite. Expression Studio contains a full version of Visual Studio 2005 Standard, Expression Blend, Expression Design, Expression Media and, of course, Expression Web. It's not as powerful a suite as any of the various combinations of Adobe Creative Suite, but it's still early days. So, are Microsoft on to a winner here? Could Expression Web ever become a Dreaweaver-killer?

At this stage, one would have to say that it is unlikely to become a Dreaweaver-killer. However, it is a serious contender and will undoubtedly take some of Adobe's market share. Microsoft have created a program which is not simply a reworked version of FrontPage. Expression Web is a standards-compliant development environment which enables web designers to create pages visually and automatically generates the necessary code: XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, XML, XSLT and ASP.Net.

On the downside, Expression Web only runs on Windows and its tight integration with Visual Studio suggests that a Mac version may be some time in arriving, assuming one ever does arrive. A significant number of web designers prefer to use Macs and, for this reason, will never see Expression Web as a serious rival to Dreamweaver. To win over such Mac diehards, Microsoft will have to make Expression Web not just as good as Dreamweaver but significantly better.

Another possible problem area in Expression Web is that, on the server-side, it only supports Microsoft's own ASP.Net while Dreameaver offers support for ASP, ASP.Net, Coldfusion, PHP and JSP. However, it is not just Expression Web that has limitations in this department. Dreamweaver's support for ASP.Net and PHP is unimpressive and it has been years since the last upgrade to Dreamweaver's server-side functionality.

Perhaps the biggest challenge facing Expression Web is the sheer size of Dreamweaver's established market. With over a million installations, Dreamweaver is recognised as the industry-standard in visual web development software. Also, as well as the features of program itself, there are hundreds of Dreamweaver-compatible software add-ons, called "Dreamweaver extensions", created by third parties and adopted by the Dreamweaver community. Microsoft recognises this and have given Expression Web similar extensibility. However, they have a lot of catching up to do.

To summarise, Expression Web is a quality product. Like Dreamweaver, it focuses web designers on creating standards-compliant web pages with the minimum of effort. Adobe will have no option but to take this new contender seriously and come up with some new and innovative features in their next release of Dreamweaver. So, good news all round for users of web development software!

About the Author

The The writer of this article is a training consultant with Macresource Computer Solutions, a UK IT training company offering Adobe Dreamweaver Classes at their central London training centre.