Microsoft Underdog As Expression Web Takes On Dreamweaver

By Andrew Whiteman in Web Design on March 5th, 2008

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by Andrew Whiteman

In an interesting change of direction, Microsoft failed to introduce a FrontPage 2007, choosing instead to release a brand-new product aimed at the professional web design market. Now Microsoft find themselves in the unusual position of having a fledgling product competing against an established solution which completely dominates the web page creation arena.

Just as Dreamweaver is part of the Adobe Creative Suite so Expression Web forms part of Expression Studio, a group of programs aimed at equipping web designers with all the tools they need to design and build web sites. Expression Studio comprises Expression Web, Expression Blend, Expression Design and Expression Media. (As a bonus, it also includes Visual Studio 2005 Standard.) So, should Adobe be quaking in their boots or just grinning smugly; how good is Microsoft’s new offering?

At this stage, one would have to say that it is unlikely to become a Dreaweaver-killer. However, it is a serious contender and will undoubtedly take some of Adobe’s market share. Microsoft have created a program which is not simply a reworked version of FrontPage. Expression Web is a standards-compliant development environment which enables web designers to create pages visually and automatically generates the necessary code: XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, XML, XSLT and ASP.Net.

It looks as though Expression Web will be a PC-only program, and this may prove to be a problem for Microsoft since a significant number of web designers use Macs in preference to PCs. However, to counter this, Microsoft can count on an equally significant group of users, especially in the corporate sector, who buy Microsoft software as a matter of course because of the way Microsoft programs integrate with one another.

Another potential weakness in Expression Web is that its server-side support is limited to ASP.Net. Dreamweaver offers support for ASP, ASP.Net, PHP, Coldfusion and JSP. This having been said, Dreamweaver’s server-side facilities are fairly long in the tooth and have not been significantly upgraded for about five years and there is still no support for ASP.Net 2.0. It could therefore be argued that both Expression Web and Dreamweaver are lacking in the server-side development area.

There are over a million web developers using Adobe Dreamweaver and the program is recognised as the industry-standard in visual web development software. It’s maturity in the market place gives the program a huge advantage over Expression Web. Third-party developers have also created hundreds of useful add-ons (”Dreamweaver extensions” ) which provide such features as ecommerce and XML integration to the basic program. Microsoft recognises the importance of add-ons and have given Expression Web similar extensibility but it will be some years before they have any chance of catching up.

In brief, in Expression Web, Microsoft have created a very impressive, professional web development tool which will find a ready market with Microsoft users particularly those who already own FrontPage. However, it’s difficult to see existing Dreamweaver users abandoning Adobe’s equally excellent product any time soon.

About the Author:

The author is a trainer and developer with Macresource Computer Solutions, a UK IT training company offering Adobe Dreamweaver training courses at their central London training centre.