Microsoft Launches Visual Studio Express, VS 2005 Beta

An anonymous reader writes "At the TechEd Europe keynote today, Microsoft launched Visual Studio 2005 Beta 1. With it, they also released a set of five 'Express Editions' of Visual Studio. These currently free applications offer a student and hobbyist-oriented version of Visual Studio, and are available in C#, C++, VB, Web Developer, and SQL flavors. Each download weighs in at right around 50MB and features tools, documentation, and starter kits. There's been multiple posts and more information on this announcement over at MSDN Blogs, too." Update: 06/29 13:57 GMT by S : A clarification from the Express FAQ: Although the Beta Express products are currently free to download: "We have not announced pricing and licensing and will not do so until next calendar year."

Comments

Can you make a commercial product?

[gr8_phk]

Will the EULA allow development of commercial products? Lots of "hobby" or "student" projects end up for sale or as shareware. Will people making that switch then have to buy the real thing?

Everyone should just download Eclipse and MinGW instead. If these aren't up to snuff then fix the problem - you're a software developer after all....

Here's how it really works

[His name cannot be s]

I'm suprised at how "expensive" people feel Visual Studio is.

As a professional developer, I use both VS.net 2003 and Eclipse (3.0m9) almost every day.

Last year, I worked pretty close with an MS consultant on a project, and he let me in on a few things.

Microsoft only prices the software high so that people give them a percieved value. The consulting groups then turn around and hand out copies of VS.NET,SQL Server and Win2k3 like candy at halloween.

18 months or so ago, There was an article about MS giving away VS.NET CDs at some university, and people started asking about the licensing. The answer generally was "go ahead and use it"... Which illustrates MS's position on devloper tools. Get them into the hands of the users, don't worry about making money on them.

Another effect of this mentality, is the VS.NET installer has a spot for a product key, but it is disabled, thereby allowing anyone to install the product over and over.

Microsoft will likely price the Express editions at $100 +/- $50 , and then proceed to give them away in cereal boxes :)

My 2c+GST.