To Microsoft or not To Microsoft

In 1600 Shakespeare wrote “To be or not to be, that is the question” in his famous and well know play “Hamlet”. I will twist this statement a bit “To Microsoft or not To Microsoft, that is the question”.

Today while I was attending a workshop about business development I made a short conversation with one of the attendees – a freelance web developer- about Microsoft web development environment. He have a prejudgment says that using Microsoft tech’s costs a lot of money. He have no idea about the major move Microsoft did.

What options I have as a freelancer, MicroISV … etc?

What I tried to say that Microsoft provide developers with very impressive and powerful set of tools regardless the type of application –Web,Windows- . For example to develop a ASP.NET web application we can use:

  • Visual Web Developer Express Edition: a  full featured IDE to build AJAX-enabled web pages and  Data driven applications.
  • SQL Server Express: Simple and powerful database server.
  • Web Development Server : Small web server embedded with Web Developer Express.
  • ASP.NET and .Net Framework: Runtime and libraries  available with Windows operating system.

You can start developing web applications using these tools without need to install big scale development stuff.

What about other applications types?

And while you are using these tools you will feel comfortable if you moved to develop windows applications for example. Microsoft provide developers with another set of tools for windows application development just like Visual C#,VB.NET,C++ Express. You will be using the same languages, the same frameworks, same libraries and a common IDE. 

How it costs me when Microsofting?

The nice about all the above that they are available free of charge. You don’t need to pay a penny for that stuff. That’s real their is no catch ups or hidden traps and another good news is you can use it to build commercial products.

So you can start developing applications and make money without paying anything.

Is their is any limitations?

Yes, that’s for sure. These tools have limited features but I believe they are more than enough for developer with basic needs.

Is that good for software development in Palestine?

For sure. The Palestinian IT sector is still a growing one. People here have low living, limited finical resources, lake of opportunities and a weak economy. It’s hard enough for people to start up business in such circumstances. By using these tools you save your money to empower your business instead of spending large amount of money on buying software licenses.

In a future post I will talk about another offer Microsoft provide students with. Until that time I hope that helps

Huthaifa Afanah

2 Comments

  • Microsoft offers great academic program. During my studies in Belgrade, we had opportunity to use license version of Visual Studio(and other software) for education purpose. Of course when you start freelance you can first use free editions for development, but as soon as money arrives :) you should buy VS because it rocks!!

  • their is no resterction on applications developed using express editions. The only limitation is that these has limited features.

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