I'm attending the php|tek conference in Chicago today and tomorrow. At the moment, I'm sitting in a session with our very own Joe Stagner from the ASP.NET team where Joe's is presenting the Microsoft AJAX Library (scroll down to the bottom of the page to download the ZIP library) and how to incorperate it into your PHP applications.

A couple of interesting items that Joe pointed out during his talk.

First, when Joe asked the question “Is everyone aware that Microsoft provides FREE development tools?” And most people shook their head “No”. These tools that Joe was referring to is our Visual Studio ExpressEditions. These editions come in many flavors depending on what type of developmentyou want to do:

Visual Web Developer Express Edition- Productivity that is ideal for first time or casual Windows programming.

Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition- Productivity that is ideal for first time or casual Windows programming.

Visual C# Express Edition- A great combination of power and productivity for the Windows developer.

Visual C++ Express Edition- Horsepower with a finer degree of control than other Express Editions.

SQL Server 2005 Express Edition- A powerful and easy-to-use database to complement each Express Edition.

XNA Game Studio Express- based on Visual C# Express Edition and allows you to create games for both Windows PC’s and the Xbox 360.

Also, for those PHP developers out there who may be interested in learning more about Microsoft's web technologies may want to check the Microsoft Web Developer Learning Series. Thislearning series brings together over 80 (!) learning modules, including 6 virtual labs, 28 on-demand sessions and 47 live webcasts. These modules focus on topics such as ASP.NET, ASP.NET AJAX and our recently released Expression product suite. There is a special track just for PHP developers.