It's always a bad sign when a speaker pretends the dates in his/her slide deck aren't really there. It's almost as bad when Microsoft denies that it ever stated a ship date for a product in the first place. But that's exactly what's happening on the Expression Studio design-tool side of the house. Microsoft told developers last year to expect its Expression Web Designer and Graphic Designer to hit in calendar 2006. Now it seems Expression Interactive Designer and Graphic Designer won't ship until some time during Microsoft's fiscal 2008, which runs from July 1, 2007, to June 30, 2008. Microsoft is holding to the party line and claiming it has set no dates (even though the dates were visible to all attendees of one particular Worldwide Partner Conference session).
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