Microsoft to give free developer tools to tech enthusiasts

New Delhi, May 18 (UNI) Microsoft Corporation India Pvt Ltd today launched a free tool--Visual Studio 2005 Express Editions--for India's growing student and technology enthusiast community.

Through this, Microsoft wants to encourage 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 CDs of the Visual Studio Express Editions will be available to the first 20,000 developers that register on the site-- www.vsexpress.in-- and will be shipped to them free of cost.

''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,'' Microsoft India Director Developer and Platform Evangelism Sheila Gulati said.

The free availability of the Visual Studio Express Editions will provide the fast growing student, hobbyist developer and novice professionaldeveloper communities the opportunity to familiarise themselves with the rich functionality of a development suite used the world over, she added.

Microsoft's new offering consist of Visual Web Developer Express, Visual Basic Express, Visual C# Express, Visual C++ Express and Visual J# Express.

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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