Highlights of Tom Rizzo’s SharePoint Designer Announcement

According to Google Blog Search, SharePoint Buzz had the scoop 11 hours ago on the official SharePoint Designer announcement.

Figure 1 Sometime close to midnight this Microsoft Download site was updated with the text SharePoint Designer is NOW FREE!

Along with the download, we were provided a number of great resources to take advantage of the great pricing. Video: SharePoint Designer 2007 (April 2009 Announcement) is a new interview with Tom Rizzo the Senior Director for SharePoint.

Besides the big announcement, Tom provides some insight into why Microsoft made this decision and what it means for the future.

• Tom called SharePoint a "Blockbuster Product" for Microsoft
  • "We’ve sold over 100 million licenses of SharePoint and broken $1 billion in business."
• Del Monte is using SharePoint Designer to develop rich internet applications
• He called SharePoint a "Super Platform"
  • A business could consolidate disparate systems onto one platform
  • Enterprise Content Management, Collaboration and Application Platforms can be combined to one toolset
  • Savings in Training: training occurs once for all IT Staff and Developers across one platform
• On Wave 14, as they referred to the next version of Office and SharePoint, Tom had this to say
  • "SharePoint as a platform is one of our top tier investments"
  • Microsoft is "investing a lot inside of SharePoint Designer in the next release to make sure it’s a comprehensive design tool for SharePoint customers."
  • It was also noted in the video that the Expression Suite will be updated to have stronger ties to SharePoint in the next version

Figure 2 Tom Rizzo calls SharePoint a "Blockbuster Product" for Microsoft

What do you think this means for your business? If you are excited to start building rich internet applications with SharePoint Designer, drop me a line in the comments section or by the Contact link above.