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Microsoft Website Spark Platform

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A program that offers visibility, support and software for professional Web Developers and Designers

Microsoft today launched WebsiteSpark, a program designed to help Web development and design companies for three years with no up-front cost. The program provides businesses with Microsoft software and solutions, related tools, training and support, plus connecting Web professionals and hosters to an ecosystem of customers, partners, and other professionals with complementary technologies. There are, however, two catches. First, the company interested in WebsiteSpark must have fewer than 10 employees and owners that build websites and Web applications on behalf of others. Second, there is a $100 program offering fee, payable at exit.

If you can deal with those two requirements, youll get access to the following:

  • Microsoft Web design and development tools, including three licenses of Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition, two licenses of Microsoft Expression Web 3, and one license of Microsoft Expression Studio 3
  • Four processor licenses for production usage to Windows Web Server 2008 or R2 (when available) and four processor licenses for production usage to Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Web Edition
  • A third-party premium Web site control panel (DotNetPanel)
  • Two technical support incidents per company
  • Access to community support through connections with Network Partners, Hosting Partners and peers with complementary services and technologies
  • Unlimited access to technical managed newsgroups on MSDN
  • Unlimited program support for nontechnical issues
  • Your companys offerings featured in a WebsiteSpark marketplace (coming this fall), supported by Microsoft marketing vehicles

This is the third Spark program out of Redmond: BizSpark helps early-stage startups succeed by providing Microsoft software, support, and visibility at no cost while DreamSpark gives students professional-level developer and designer tools as well as training available at no charge.

Web Platform Installer

Microsoft made sure it wasn just pushing its tools for free today though. The software giant announced version 2.0 of its Web Platform Installer (WebPI)—which sets up every Microsoft Web technology you need on your development box or deployment server—and of the Windows Web App Gallery, which allows developers to discover Web applications and use WebPI to download and install them. The biggest improvement with version 2 is that WebPI can now install popular open source ASP.NET and PHP Web apps. Furthermore, it analyzes all dependencies that the application needs and installs them (like downloading PHP from the PHP community site). The Windows Web App Gallerys biggest improvement is that its now available to an international developer audience in nine languages.