For those who don't already know, Microsoft has discontinued Front Page . For those who rely upon this product, they now, in order to keep up with changing web technologies, will have to spend a lot more to get the replacement product, never mind that they will have to learn a whole new product in which everything seems to have changed drastically.
On the plus side, it looks like "Front Page extensions" will no longer be needed on servers. These have always been a nuisance for web designers who are called in to fix a site, finding they can't hand-code a fix but will have to use "the F word" to make any changes to such a site. If they don't do it this way, it causes problems with the site they would then have to go back in and fix, so this has always been an annoyance. On the down side, the new product for the professional designer is Expression Web, and as usual Microsoft is using its users as beta testers, meaning that the product is possibly not as bug-free as it ought to be, but it's going out into the market anyway. The new product also requires that the web designer install .NET 2.0 onto their computer in order to make it work. While this is much better technology than the old, it's clear that once again Microsoft is selling a product that will favor their own technology and may well have issues with anything other than that technology. They just don't seem to get that the Web is a place of many technologies, and supporting them will, in the end, bring the best products to the fore.. thereby making them work to make their product all that it should be as it competes against all the other products out there. For my money, I'm glad that I starting using Dreamweaver long ago. Dreamweaver does not play favorites with technology, its designers have worked hard to make the product work with all sorts of programming languages and not just one. They also don't require that you go out and download another load of software (as with .NET 2.0) in order to make the product work--it's all there to start. While I am still waiting to see what Adobe does to it (hoping that they will stay on track with Macromedia's ideals and keep the product much as it is in terms of non-favoritism toward any particular programming language or technology) now that they have acquired it, I see no reason whatsoever to work with Microsoft's product. Their main market appears to be those they have already "captured" who still use Front Page. Personally, I don't want to be one of those prisoners.
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