Microsoft offers free tools for students

Bangalore, May 18 (UNI) Software major Microsoft India today launched a free tool, the Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions, for India's growing student and technology enthusiast community.

Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions, the company says, 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 was 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, a company release here said.

The Editions can be downloaded from http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/default.aspx.

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

The Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions now joins 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, the release added.

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