History of Microsoft FrontPage
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Many people instantly associate the FrontPage application with software giant Microsoft; as such, it might be surprising to know that FrontPage was created by Vermeer Technologies Incorporated (VTI). Development on Vermeer FrontPage, as it was known back then, began in 1994. A year later in November, Cambridge, Massachusetts-based VTI released Vermeer FrontPage 1.0, which stands as one of the first distributed web content authoring applications to come out.
In 1996, shortly after the release of FrontPage 1.0 (and twenty months after development had started on it), Microsoft acquired Vermeer Technologies for more or less $133 million. Microsoft bought VTI specifically to add FrontPage to their growing product line-up.
In June of 1996, five months after buying Vermeer, Microsoft released Microsoft FrontPage 1.1, which was followed by Microsoft FrontPage 97 four months later. Early next year, Microsoft FrontPage 2.0 Express came out. FrontPage Express was a free-stripped down version that came with Internet Explorer 4.0. FrontPage Express 2.0 can be downloaded from the Internet (installer .exe file approximately 1.9 MB).
Before 1997 closed out, Microsoft released FrontPage 98. A version for the Macintosh operating system having fewer features than the Windows version came out around 1998. As of writing, the Mac version still hasn't been updated by Microsoft.
The next edition of the program came out in March 1999 as Microsoft FrontPage 2000 – Version 4. Around two years later, FrontPage 2002 – Version 5 was released. The most recent incarnation of the software came out in October 2003: Microsoft FrontPage 2003 – Version 6.
Microsoft is set to replace FrontPage with two products – Microsoft SharePoint Designer and Microsoft Expression Web Designer. Both applications are slated to be released in the second half of 2006, as part of the full Microsoft Office 2007 line-up. SharePoint Designer is meant to be used by business professionals in building SharePoint-based applications and designing SharePoint websites. On the other hand, its partner MS Expression Web Designer is a next-generation program that will allow web design professionals to create full-blown, dynamic web sites.
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