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| 23rd April 2006 |
FREE SOFTWARE TOOLS BECOME |
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It would seem that Microsoft are beginning to warm towards the hobbyist again, if recent decisions are anything to go by. Perhaps it is the influence of Linux, where all software is low cost, but Microsoft are beginning to supply development software for free. It is becoming noticeable of late that, despite denigrating Linux with its 'Get the Facts' campaign, Microsoft is embracing the open software movement. Admittedly, a lot of it is to serve there own ends. They proudly boast they are getting some of their products to interact with Linux, but that is because there are a significant number of Linux users in the server market. Microsoft are making links to Linux so that more users will be able to run Microsoft software. Microsoft has also been a little more open with some of its products. Starting with the various antitrust orders against it, Microsoft have been forced to tell competitors about interfaces to their products. They still try to charge for the information but it is a start. One might argue that the Microsoft promise to create an open standard for Office documents is also a step in the right direction. Personally I think this one is a Trojan horse. If they wanted to have an open standard for Office products they would have joined the group supporting the Open Document Format, rather than create their own standard. They clearly want to control the standard for their own purposes. One area where Microsoft do seem to be having a definite change of heart is in their attitude towards the hobbyist. In the early days of Windows, Microsoft used to provide lots of free stuff towards the hobbyist developer. I've still got lots of free documentation on Windows, Word and Excel that I received simply by asking for it. It enabled one to understand these products and use them more effectively. Microsoft were rewarded with supporters for Microsoft products. They were taken into the workplace, despite what the IT departments wanted. As Windows took a hold and became a monopoly, the freebies disappeared. To try and write your own software for Windows, in Visual Basic or, more recently, .Net meant that one had to buy a development package. The prices were not cheap. It is no wonder that serious hobbyists found Java, Perl, Python and C, amongst others, more interesting when you could get these for free. For a little while now IBM and others have started to produce free software to help developers. For example we have a cut down version of the DB2 database from IBM. Now, Microsoft have started to announce free development products. It started in the database arena. Following the IBM lead, Microsoft made available a version of their SQL server software, called Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express. SQL Server is a serious product, the flagship Microsoft database for the Enterprise. In comparison Microsoft Access is a more mundane product, suitable for individual users and small departments, but not for company wide applications. As time has passed and Windows has become more complex, Visual Basic was not enough to develop applications for Windows. Microsoft produced a development suite called Visual Studio. This included Visual BASIC, Visual Web Developer, Visual C#, Visual C++ and Visual J#, (Microsoft's Java-like tool). Like the Office suite before it, the price of Visual Studio burnt a hole in your pocket, unless a company was buying it for you. Visual Studio 2005 was launched in November 2005, along with a cut down version, Visual Studio Express, that was to be free for 12 months. That time restriction has now been removed. These products are targeted at the hobbyist market and those from a younger generation wanting to develop software. The age old problem of how to enter the job market for developers when you have no experience can be helped by these products. You can get the products for free, develop something with them and gain some experience. Of course the flip side is that you are signing up with the Evil Empire of Redmond. Microsoft are hoping that users of these products will encourage the take up of the full product versions and the operating systems to run them, all of which come from Microsoft and are considerably more expensive than free. For computer enthusiasts in the UK, the first sign of this change of direction from Microsoft can be seen in the computer magazines for June 2006. One magazine has, in addition to its own cover DVD, a CD of Microsoft Visual Basic 2005 Express. Budding Windows developers take note! Acknowledgements: The basis for this article was a news item on 'The Register', which can be found at: |
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