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Microsoft mixes it up with designer types

Martin LaMonica Former Staff writer, CNET News
Martin LaMonica is a senior writer covering green tech and cutting-edge technologies. He joined CNET in 2002 to cover enterprise IT and Web development and was previously executive editor of IT publication InfoWorld.
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Martin LaMonica

Looking beyond business developers, Microsoft will pitch its wares to Web developers and designers at a conference in March. Chief software architect Bill Gates is a scheduled keynoter.

The Las Vegas conference, called Mix 06, is meant to appeal to developers looking to build snazzy front-ends to multimedia Web applications.

"Media is transforming technology and technology is transforming media. Web 'designers' are starting to write a little code, while Web 'developers' are learning to twiddle pixels," according to the conference Web site.

For Microsoft, capturing the attention of Web designers and developers is an avenue for growing its customer base. In addition, the dominant desktop software provider has an interest in promoting "rich clients," or applications with sophisticated GUIs that make use of client-side processing.

On top of a speech from Gates, attendees will hear more about developing for Windows Vista, Windows Live and Microsoft's Atlas AJAX framework.

It may also be a fine venue for the software giant to launch its Expression line, the company's first designer-oriented products now in beta testing.