Visual Studio 2005 express will remain free

21st April 2006

Corporation Microsoft made the decision to prolong for the indeterminate period initiative on the free propagation of environment for development of applications Visual Studio 2005 express. Packet Visual Studio 2005 was officially represented on 7 November of past year. Moreover simultaneously with the announcement of the full functioning version of product, Microsoft released its simplified Express- version, oriented, primary, to the studying and beginning programmers. At summary there were proposed five versions Visual Studio 2005 express - Visual Web Developer Express, Visual Basic Express, Visual C # Express, Visual C++ Express and Visual J # Express. Originally it was planned, it would be possible to downloadthese packets free of charge in the course of twelve months, i.e., until 7 November, 2006, but currently this limitation has been removed. By the way, as it was reported on web site of Microsoft, less than half of a year since the moment of announcement passed and there were downloaded more than five million copies of different modifications of Visual Studio 2005 express. With the support of company Lego corporation Microsoft released the special set of instruments, using which together with Visual Studio 2005 Express developers can program Lego Mindstorm robots. Furthermore, assistance to the users of the free development environment is provided by Phidgets USA and eBay. It is remarkable, that to all programmers, who use Visual Studio 2005 express, Microsoft corporation proposes to enter their works in competition Made in express Contest.