Several months after Microsoft released Acrylic Graphic Designer, it now has two more up it sleeves.
One is the Sparkle Interactive Designer, aimed for rich design environment that combines multiple media elements including vectors, pixel images, 3D content, video & audio, high quality text, and animation. The other one is the Quartz Web Designer for website authoring, which in my opinion is gearing up to replace MS FrontPage.
With the merger of Adobe and Macromedia just months ago, it looks like Microsoft is positioning itself to take on yet another battle in the creative department.
It’s likely Microsoft expects to take market share from Adobe and Macromedia, which are combining in a $3.4 billion acquisition by Adobe scheduled to close within weeks. Shareholders of the companies approved the deal Aug. 24. But Microsoft faces a formidable partnership: 98% of Internet users have the Flash Player on their PCs, according to market researcher NPD Group. Macromedia this month is delivering new versions of its Flash Player and development tools for multimedia Web apps. Adobe’s After Effects software also contains functions used in Microsoft’s upcoming Expression software.
Source: InformationWeek
The trio of apps they’ve just released is under the Microsoft Expression brand. More can be found here.
Actually, Micro$oft didn’t MAKE Acrylic, its just a BAD re-hash of Creaturehouse Expression 3.0 (hence it being part of micro$oft’s “Expression Family of Designer Tools”).
The Simple proof of this is if you go to the url of the origional Author’s (Creaturehouse) site, http://www.creaturehouse.com it immediately redirects to the “Microsoft Expression” pages.
If Microsoft is “positioning itself to take on yet another battle in the creative department” why is it using a Dead nation’s soldiers ?
Oh yeah, and Microsoft WERE offering Expression 3 (Infinately better than Acrylic) as a free Download, but the page it was at:
[ link ]
Went down as soon as the “Expression Family of Designer Tools” went up.