Expression Media Sold

Expression Media, a tool for graphic designers to tag and organize large collections of digital media files stored in multiple locations, is being sold to Phase One, a Danish company that makes digital photography equipment and software. The sale was completed in May 2010.

Microsoft acquired the product, then known as MediaPro, when it purchased United Kingdom-based iView Multimedia in June 2006. Microsoft then rebranded the product as part of its Expression line, which helps designers, photographers, and other graphic artists create and manage digital assets to be used in developing Web sites, Windows applications, and print materials; Expression competes with similar products from Adobe. Microsoft began shipping Expression Media as part of the five-product Expression Studio in summer 2007.

Since then, however the strategy for Expression has evolved slightly: where it was originally intended to provide a general-purpose suite for graphics designers, its main purpose now is to help designers work with developers who use Microsoft-specific technologies, such as XAML (the XML-based graphics format used by the Windows Presentation Foundation and Silverlight user interface frameworks) and the ASP.NET dynamic Web page framework. Consequently, Microsoft removed Expression Media from version 3 of Expression Studio, which was released in 2009, and Expression Media has not been significantly updated since 2008.