Will Microsoft Expression Web Threaten Dreamweaver?

When Microsoft released Office 2007, Microsoft FrontPage was conspicuous by its absence. Its place has been taken by Microsoft Expression Web, a product which clearly aims to take some of Adobe Dreamweaver's huge share of the web design market. For once Microsoft finds itself playing the role of underdog and is sensibly adopting some of the tactics used by Adobe in gaining their dominant position in web design software.

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?

The truth is, Microsoft being who they are, Adobe had better sit up and take notice. Expression web is not just a revamped version of FrontPage (a product which was clearly no match for Dreamweaver). It offers web designers a fairly complete set of tools for building sites compliant with current standards. It has excellent support for XHTML, CSS, XML, XSLT, ASP.Net and JavaScript. It also shows users a very accurate representation of the web page they are building even without previewing in a browser.

One potential problem which Microsoft will face in attempting to lure users away from Dreamweaver is the fact that Expression Web only runs on PCs. A high proportion of web designers use Apple Mac. Microsoft may find that it's not enough to make Expression Web a little better than Dreamweaver in order to challenge its dominance; they may have to make it a whole lot 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.

There are over a million web developers using Adobe Dreamweaver and the program is recognised as the industry-standard in visual web development software. It's maturity in the market place gives the program a huge advantage over Expression Web. Third-party developers have also created hundreds of useful add-ons ("Dreamweaver extensions" ) which provide such features as ecommerce and XML integration to the basic program. Microsoft recognises the importance of add-ons and have given Expression Web similar extensibility but it will be some years before they have any chance of catching up.

In brief, in Expression Web, Microsoft have created a very impressive, professional web development tool which will find a ready market with Microsoft users particularly those who already own FrontPage. However, it's difficult to see existing Dreamweaver users abandoning Adobe's equally excellent product any time soon.

Article Source: http://www.myarticlesdirectory.com

The writer of this article is a developer and trainer with Macresource Computer Solutions, an independent computer training company offering Adobe Dreamweaver Classes at their central London training centre.

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