Microsoft Releases WebMatrix Beta 2

Today, Microsoft continued to reinforce its investment in the Microsoft Web Platform by releasing beta 2 of WebMatrix. WebMatrix was first announced in July, and is a free tool that gives developers the ability to create new sites, by either writing the code themselves, or by using existing free open source software applications. WebMatrix also supplies tools to customize sites by writing code, editing data and much more, as well as the ability to publish sites with integrated deployment tools, and a gallery of hosting providers.

The Microsoft Web Platform, which includes the Web Application Gallery, Web Platform Installer and WebMatrix, is designed to provide developers with what they need to build and run websites and applications on Windows. The beta 2 of WebMatrix has a number of time saving shortcuts for developers including:

· A new, easy-to-learn syntax for ASP.NET (nicknamed ‘Razor’) to provide developers with a faster way to build standards-based websites.

· Helpers that encapsulate common complex tasks into a single line of code – examples are displaying Twitter updates, providing social networking link shares or embedding video.

· The full Web stack on their development machine that matches what they’ll have on the internet that runs their site.

You can learn more about today’s announcement on Microsoft’s Web Platform blog, Scott Guthrie’s blog and download the WebMatrix beta 2 at www.microsoft.com/web/webmatrix.