Microsoft Brings Developers and Designers Closer Together With Expression Studio 4 Release

NEW YORK, June 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Today at Internet Week New York 2010, Microsoft Corp. announced the immediate availability of Microsoft Expression Studio 4. The newest version of Microsoft's professional suite of design tools, Expression 4 distinguishes itself by enabling designers and developers to collaborate and create dynamic applications using their existing skills and current toolset.

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"Great design and development both require passion, skill and exceptional tools. With Expression Studio 4, we're delivering a single toolset that brings these two worlds together," said S. "Soma" Somasegar, senior vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft. "The new features in Expression Studio 4 enable better customer engagement, greater flexibility and faster time-to-market."

New features and functionality found within Expression Studio 4 enable the following:

• Seamless flow between design and development. Expression Studio 4 Ultimate, which includes Blend and SketchFlow, allows the quick translation from ideas to rich, digital prototypes and simplifies the creation of applications for Silverlight and for mobile devices, such as Windows® Phone 7.
• Streamlined website creation. Its sophisticated toolset makes it easier than ever to build and deploy websites. Advanced visual diagnostics also speed browser compatibility testing.
• Simplified video publishing. Encode a wide variety of video file formats, such as VC-1 and H.264, to make simple edits and enhance your media for distribution through players built with technologies such as Silverlight.

Expression Studio 4 complements creative tools already in use by design and development teams with high-quality import capabilities, ensuring that the best static design assets can be used in interactive design. It also provides fast, flexible workflow with Microsoft Expression Blend, Visual Studio and the Microsoft .NET Framework.

Customers using Expression are seeing a substantial increase in business opportunity. Utilizing SketchFlow to pitch new business, Anvil Digital has increased its business win rate from 30 percent to 90 percent, cut development time by 40 percent and has more than doubled in size in the past two years. In another example, Cynergy, an Expression customer for the past three years, now focuses more than half of its business on developing Silverlight applications using Expression. Expression Studio 4 allows Copia users to consume content and share information seamlessly via rich multitouch experiences that span the PC, eReaders, tablets and mobile devices.

"SketchFlow has made it tremendously easy to quickly convey our design concepts to clients and show that we understand their business needs," said Miguel Carrasco, chief software architect at Anvil Digital. "Prior to using Expression, we were winning just a couple jobs we bid out of every 10. Today, we win nine out of the 10 jobs we bid, because clients can clearly envision our design concepts, and know we can quickly deliver a final product."

Product Information and Availability

Expression Studio 4 is available today for trial download at http://www.microsoft.com/expression. Customers currently using Expression 3 can upgrade to Expression Studio 4 at no additional cost.

More information about the new features and capabilities in Expression Studio 4 is available at the Silverlight and Expression Virtual Press Room at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/silverlight.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

SOURCE Microsoft Corp.