Microsoft began offering this week Beta 2 releases of its free Visual Studio 2010 Express products, which are intended to enable students, hobbyists, and novices to build Windows and Web applications.

Aiming to reach a larger audience of software developers, Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday announced slimmed-down “Express” editions of its Visual Studio developer tool for specific programming languages.

Microsoft introduced the ASP.NET Web Matrix integrated development environment to provide an inexpensive method for creating ASP.NET Web applications and services. This is a valuable tool for creating ...