Visual Web Developer Express Edition should be free

[John Dalberg]

I don't know how much Microsoft is planning to price Visual Web Developer
Express Edition. I heard rumors from free to $100.

In my opinion I think it should make it free. The reason is to attract as
many people to .NET and ASP.NET. This includes people who are in the Linux
world using free IDE's like Eclipse and the people who are thinking of
switching from Windows to Linux because Linux and Linux tools are free.
Even if MS prices it at $50, it is still too much for teenagers who are
going to be the future software engineers, developers and coders,... third
world countries developers and the people who just don't want to pay a
penny for any software (the if-it's software,
it-should-be-downloadable-for-free folks).

I would like to think of Visual Web Developer Express Edition as the next
version of Web Matrix and *IS* supported by Microsoft. This way, MS can get
tons of people interested in .NET. On top of that, make the package include
SQL Server 2005 Express Edition for free too (I think it is already?).
I don't think MS is too happy with the fact that .NET hasn't been embraced
as it thought it would.

MS doesn't need to make any money from these entry level packages. It
didn't do it with IE. The long term benefits will be astounding.

John Dalberg

 

[Hermit Dave]

i think the express products will be free but thats again for MS to decide.
Either way its aim towards enthusiasts and not developers.
Most season developers would prefer visual studio.net

SQL Server Express is just a new name for MSDE but it will have some UI
tools as well. and MSDE has been free and so would SQL Express me (most
probably)

Well i dont know anybody using linux because of free dev tools... there are
hardly any consider any programming platform. And .net has been embraced a
lot if you ask me. Its a total change in strategy and it takes time. We even
have partial framework implementation on Linux (www.go-mono.com) .Net is not
about making money its making about making life for an average developer
easy. Consider a poor sod supporting a win32 app... or even ms employees
who build apps on top on apis.. the framework essentially shields them from
api's in most cases.

--

Regards,

Hermit Dave
(http://hdave.blogspot.com)

 

[Steve C. Orr [MVP, MCSD]]

I suspect it will be free, or at least dirt cheap.
I'd be surprised if they charged as much as $100 for it, although they
certainly wouldn't charge more.
Of course all such decisions are ultimately up to Microsoft so I can't say
for sure, I just know that their marketing department is not stupid.

 

[Guest]

I personally do not care how they do it. Free is fine, but if there is a
market, all the better. I do not think you will see .NET die if there is not
a free product, so our jobs are safe. ;->

Even at $100, I think there is a market for the product, especially when
products like FrontPage are much pricier.


--
Gregory A. Beamer
MVP; MCP: +I, SE, SD, DBA

***************************
Think Outside the Box!
***************************

 

[Peter Young]

I don't know how much Microsoft is planning to price Visual Web Developer
Express Edition. I heard rumors from free to $100.

In my opinion I think it should make it free. The reason is to attract as
many people to .NET and ASP.NET. This includes people who are in the Linux
world using free IDE's like Eclipse

Folks in the Linux camp aren't going to switch to asp.net because of a free dev tool. There are many reasons they prefer
Linux that have nothing to do with the cost of MS tools.

 

[Abdu]

i think the express products will be free but thats again for MS to decide.
Either way its aim towards enthusiasts and not developers.
Most season developers would prefer visual studio.net

Microsoft needs to get as many developers writing for .NET as it can.
If this means giving the Express IDE's away, I think it would make a
lot of sense.

The developers use the professional tools like VS.NET, the enthusiasts
can use the Express tools for free. Even a $5 tool is still a barrier
for a teenager who doesn't have a credit card to buy such a tool
online or is too lazy to ask his/he dad to pay for it and would rather
instead switch to Linux and download everything they want for free.
Microsoft needs to disuade these types by giving the entry level tools
for free. IE captured most of the browser market because IE is free.
It can do similary with IDEs and get developers develop for the
Windows Platform. Once a ton of open source of .NET are out there,
more people will use Windows and Microsoft can leverage on this base
better.

Abdu

 

[Abdu]

Folks in the Linux camp aren't going to switch to asp.net because of a free dev tool. There are many reasons they prefer
Linux that have nothing to do with the cost of MS tools.

They don't have to switch to Windows. They can run Wine or whatever
emulator is out there and play with .NET. There's always the people
who switched to Linux because of cost and lack of free open source
apps. Once we have lots of these apps, the defection for this reason
can be hampered and people might defect back to Windows. Some people
defect to Linux because of (perceived?) better security. Security in
Windows has improved a lot and with XP SP2, it's been much better.
There are Linux people out there who are still thinking of Windows 95
securtiy. They should be comparing the latest everything from MS with
the latest everything from Linux.

Abdu