Microsoft is expanding access to its cloud-based application lifecycle management service, although the service still remains in preview mode.

At its TechEd conference in Orlando, Fla. Monday, the company will announce that anyone can utilize its Team Foundation Service ALM server, which is hosted on Microsoft's Windows Azurecloud. First announced last September, the preview had been limited to invitation-only usage. Since it remains in a preview phase, the service can be used free of charge. 

[ Microsoft has reconsidered its initial plan to not offer Visual Studio Express 2012 for desktop development and now will offer such a product. | Subscribe to InfoWorld's Developer World newsletter for the latest on software development. ]

"Anybody who wants to try it can try it," said Brian Harry, Microsoft technical fellow and product line manager for Team Foundation Server, the behind-the-firewall version of the ALM server. Developers can access Team Foundation Service at the Team Foundation Service preview site.

Through the cloud ALM service, developers can plan projects, collaborate, and manage code online. Code is checked into the cloud using the Visual Studio or Eclipse IDEs. Languages ranging from C# to Python are supported, as are such platforms as Windows and Android.

With Team Foundation Service, Microsoft expects to compete with rival tools like Atlassian Jira."Team Foundation Service is a full application lifecycle management product that provides a rich set of capabilities from early project planning and management through development, testing, and deployment," Harry said. "We've got the most comprehensive ALM tool in the market, and it is simple and easy to use and easy to get started." Eventually, Microsoft will charge for use of Team Foundation Service, but it will not happen this year, Harry said.

Microsoft has been adding capabilities to Team Foundation Service every three weeks. A new continuous deployment feature enables applications to be deployed to Azure automatically. A build service was added in March. On Monday, Microsoft will announce the addition of a rich landing page with more information about the product.

After hearing objections from developers, Microsoft will offer a version of its Visual Studio Express 2012 package for desktop application development after all.

The company had previously announced that Express 2012 editions, which are free, platform-specific versions of the Visual Studio 2012 IDE, would be limited to Windows 8 Metro-style development as well as development for the Windows Azure cloud platform, Windows Phone, and Web applications. Metro is the new tablet-style look and feel planned for the upcoming Windows 8 operating system.

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Developers were unhappy with the lack of desktop application support. "A few weeks ago, we shared our plans for the Express editions of Visual Studio 2012," said Microsoft Corporate Vice President S. Somasegar, in a blog post on Friday morning. "As we've worked to deliver the best experience with Visual Studio for our platforms with Windows 8, Windows Phone, and for Web and Windows Azure, we heard from our community that developers want to have for Windows desktop development the same great experience and access to the latest Visual Studio 2012 features at the Express level."

Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Desktop is due for release this fall, Somasegar said. "Adhering to the core principles we've set for our Express products, Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Desktop will provide a simple, end-to-end development experience for developing Windows desktop applications targeted to run on all versions of Windows supported by Visual Studio 2012. With this new Express edition, developers will be able to use C++, C#, or Visual Basic to create Windows desktop and console applications."

Microsoft last week began offering a Visual Studio 2012 release candidate, generally considered the last stage before a general product release. But Microsoft has not stated exactly when Visual Studio 2012 or Windows 8 will ship. Also in the Windows 8 realm, tools provider Telerik said this week it will preview its RadControls for Metro toolset at Microsoft's TechEd conference in Orlando, Fla. next week. RadControls for Metro features a set of XAML and HTML data visualization controls for Windows 8 Metro-style development, said Chris Sells, vice president of developer relations for Telerik. The company is looking to add further controls as well. "We're starting at data visualization because that's one of the places that Microsoft has left a big hole in support for application-building on the Metro-style UI," Sells said.

This article, "Microsoft extends Visual Studio Express 2012 to desktop apps," was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the latest developments in business technology news and get a digest of the key stories each day in the InfoWorld Daily newsletter. For the latest developments in business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.

Apple's announcement in March, upon releasing the new iPad (a.k.a. iPad 3), that it was lowering iPad 2 pricing to $399 has forced other tablet computer makers to slash pricing on their devices as well. That proved to be a major reason for the average selling price of tablets falling 21 percent to $386 in Q1, according to IMS Research.

In fact, low-end tablets priced below $200 are becoming more common even as demand has swelled, particularly in emerging countries, according to the research. Worldwide tablet shipments fell from the Q4 holiday quarter, though more than doubled from Q1 a year ago.

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IMS Research's Gerry Xu commented: "There are few innovations from vendors to differentiate their tablets; low price seems to be the major factor to attract consumers to buy tablets other than iPads. More vendors are expected to focus on the low-end tablet market. However, to balance performance and profitability with a low price remains challenging for most tablet vendors. "

The low-end market is crowded by small and medium brands, plus white-box vendors, whose customers use tablets as portable media players, e-book readers and for GPS functions, according to the research. An anticipated new version of the Amazon Kindle Fire, the most popularAndroid tablet in the United States, could put pressure on these low-end market vendors to bolster their features.

Bob Brown tracks network research in his Alpha Doggs blog and Facebook page, as well on Twitter and Google +.

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