Microsoft Professional Photography site - anything worthwhile?

[Truelight]

I was watching the "Art Wolf - Travels to the Edge" PBS program the other night and noted it is in part sponsored by Microsoft, the spot referencing the Microsoft Professional Photography website -

http://www.microsoft.com/prophoto

I was not aware that Microsoft was much involved in professional photography software. Is there anything here worth a real look? I see some stuff available for download. Is Microsoft a "player" in the professional photography world, (other than of course their role in computers in general)??
--
Rick
http://www.pbase.com/truelight

 

[thundercat]

Microsoft has started to become more involved with the photo community:

"As you may have heard, iView was acquired by Microsoft in June 2006, marking an exciting new chapter for the company and the evolution of its products. What's been cooking since then? Well, the iView team and product line have now been fully integrated into Microsoft and the next generation of iView MediaPro, Microsoft Expression Media, is now available for trial and purchase.

The iView team would like to thank you for your support during this transition and are pleased to advise that the iView website with its extensive resources and active User Forum will remain live for the next year. We are also excited to introduce to you two new web communities that will carry on the iView legacy after this time – Microsoft Pro Photo, a vibrant new community for all the professional photographers among you, and Expression Media, home to product information, news and disscussion. We look forward to continuing to share with you the evolution of the industry’s true standard for digital asset management!"

from http://www.iview-multimedia.com/

They also offer HD Photo as a free plugin for Photoshop and they worked with Canon on the color management technology used in Vista.

 

[Joergen Geerds]

I feel like the buying of iView was a buy&bury attempt, since not much has been released since then. iView was a great application for that time, to bad it's gone.

--
Joergen Geerds
http://luminous-newyork.com
http://newyorkpanorama.com

 

[parisphotog]

It must be a stealth project of theirs. I didn't attend a huge gear trade show this year (in favor a huge print show) but in years past, I never saw Microsoft around. And I've never heard a word about them from NPS either.

Truelight wrote:
[snip]

I was not aware that Microsoft was much involved in professional
photography software. Is there anything here worth a real look? I
see some stuff available for download. Is Microsoft a "player" in
the professional photography world, (other than of course their role
in computers in general)??
--
Rick
http://www.pbase.com/truelight

 

[cityphotographer]

Microsoft has started to become more involved with the photo community:

yeah?

what about the orphans? is it them sponsoring the thing? how's that as involvement with the professional community?

it doesn't look good to me. or maybe I'm wrong and they are not sponsoring the orphans horror story there.