12.05.07
Alternatives to FrontPage
Microsoft FrontPage is a web design program designed for beginners. In early 2006, Microsoft reported that they will not release any further versions of their web design tool. They decided to stop making the product for several reasons:
- FrontPage was a beginner tool, that professional web designers shunned.
- Adobe Dreamweaver is the defacto tool for professionals.
- Company Intranets became more critical to businesses, and yet most businesspeople are not web designers. So it made sense to make FrontPage into something even easier to use for web design newbies.
- Due to the last point, FrontPage because the built-in authoring tool for Microsoft Sharepoint (Microsoft’s limited Intranet product).
- Professional web site design requires tools that generate standards-based code, which FrontPage could not do.
Microsoft replaces FrontPage with “Expression Web”
For users that wish to build a web site, and who don’t need a basic corporate file-sharing Intranet like Sharepoint, Microsoft created a replacement tool for FrontPage called “Expression Web”. So far, it appears that this new program has been a colossal failure. Why do I say that? Because no one (and I do mean no one) asks for it. Back in the day, folks would go to Staples or their local office store and purchase FrontPage so that they could put up a web page quickly. Those days are gone. Those that need nothing more than an extremely basic web presence today can use online page-building tools to generate simple template-based web pages quickly.
More about template sites
Template sites built through a web interface have widened the divide between building a basic web presence, and building a professional web site. This divide means that it is both easier than ever to build a web site, and it is also harder than ever to build a web site. It all depends on what you call a “web site”. Domain registrars make a killing selling those template sites, and yet they really are hideous to look at. Superpages web sites that you can buy from the local phone book are also just as bad, and they fall into the template category. I stopped trying to talk first-time web site owners out of those template sites a long time ago, because if a quick and dirty web presence is all they feel that they need, then it will take a year or two of enduring zero business from the web before those web site owners smarten up and purchase professional web services from a firm like mine (Delaware.net). In a strange way, those template sites actually gain us customers because they serve to educate future customers of the value of a custom web site. Features like search engine optimization (making your site come up in Google) are sorely missing from template sites, and more web savvy customers realize very quickly that their template site is under-performing and is actually costing them money.
Web Video Overtakes Microsoft - Microsoft Responds
With the wild popularity of video on the web, thanks to sites like YouTube, Microsoft has been left behind in this important era of the web. Since Microsoft’s arch-enemy is Google, and Google bought YouTube, the situation has looked even worse for Microsoft. This is another reason why FrontPage went away. For example, you can’t even VIEW the web site for Expression Web without installing a “Microsoft Silverlight” plugin into your browser. What the hell is Silverlight? It is Microsoft’s attempt to complete with Adobe Flash - the web’s standard video player. Once Adobe got Flash to play video, it put another nail into Microsoft’s Media player (my least favorite video player). For Microsoft to get adoption of SilverLight, they have tied it very closely with ExpressionWeb.
If you still use FrontPage, its decision time
Since FrontPage is going away, you are going to need to get a new tool for building web sites. If a low-tech tool for a simple web site is what you want, then I would use Adobe Contribute, which is an easy to use tool for Creating simple web pages and Intranet content. Several licenses of Contribute can allow a small team to create a static Intranet that is a good start for having a basic Intranet. If you want to build web pages for a living, or if you are learning web design in college, then you need to start using Dreamweaver, Adobe design products (Photoshop, Illustrator), and Microsoft Visual Studio. Those are the tools that the pros use.
Lastly, there are other alternatives and hyrbids to all of these choices. It is now possible to have a web site designed fairly inexpensively, which can also have robust applications to help your business run. At Delaware.Net, we have many of these applications ready to install in your web site - like calendars, e-commerce, signup forms, file management, and more. If you have a site built in FrontPage, we can help you to come up with a newer, better way to manage and improve your web site.
Do I hate Microsoft?
No. We have a lot of Microsoft servers in our data center, and we are adding more every month. Most of the workstations in our office also run Windows, with the exception of some graphic design workstations that are Macs. But when it comes to the web, web authoring, or Microsoft’s attempt to compete with Flash, they don’t have a chance. Even their Internet Exploder (Explorer) browser is a CONSTANT headache for web designers because it is not standards-compliant. So how are we supposed to believe that MS will make their developer tools compliant, when their web browser isn’t? The answer is that they won’t. You can see the frustration of web developers over Internet Explorer in an article that Computer World just released, and if you read the second part of it you can see how much hassle IE causes developers. Every chance I get, I try to encourage customers to use Firefox instead of IE.
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