Microsoft offers free developer tools to students

Bangalore, May 18th: Microsoft Corporation India Pvt. Ltd. today launched a free tool for India's growing student and technology enthusiast community - the Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions. Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions are light-weight, easy-to-use and easy-to-learn offerings that enable novices to quickly develop dynamic Web applications and Windows® applications.

Through this, Microsoft is encouraging the large community of software enthusiasts and students, including beginning Windows developers, hobbyists, web developers, amateur game developers and even hardware developers, to experiment with software development. The Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions can be downloaded from http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/default.aspx.

In addition, to address bandwidth issues in India, Microsoft is giving out CDs of Visual Studio Express Editions. The CD is available to the first 20,000 developers that register on the site - www.vsexpress.in and will be shipped to them free of cost.

"Software has the capability to change lives. We believe that it is important to put the power of software into the hands of young and upcoming developers, and that is the reason for making the Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions available free of charge," said Ms. Sheila Gulati, Director - Developer and Platform Evangelism, Microsoft India.

She further added, "The free availability of the Visual Studio Express Editions will provide the fast growing student, hobbyist developer and novice professional developer communities the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the rich functionality of a development suite used the world over. This also gives them the chance to experiment with cutting edge technologies and learn new skills at an early age."

Microsoft's Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions consist of Visual Web Developer Express, Visual Basic Express, Visual C# Express, Visual C++ Express and Visual J# Express. With this announcement, the Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions now join the SQL Server 2005 Express Edition as a no-cost offering within the Microsoft application platform. Since the launch of Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions and SQL Server 2005 Express Edition in early November 2005, over five million of these have already been downloaded worldwide.

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