Leendert Brouwer sent along a note about an article from The Register about Microsoft getting "switched on" to LAMP.

Microsoft is positioning planned "express" editions of its next developer tools suite and database as "lightweight" alternatives to the open source LAMP stack. Martin Taylor, Microsoft's platform strategy general manager, told The Register SQL Server 2005 Express would allow tables and files to be stored on a web page to increase a site's functionality while simplified programming would be provided in Visual Studio 2005.

"We will have LAMP-like capability to quickly build a web site," Taylor claimed. Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 are now due to launch on November 7.

While some of this isn't new news, it's interesting to hear it directly from a Microsoft spokesman that they are targeting the LAMP users of the world with their new software. Also interesting, this quote:

Microsoft also plans to challenge LAMP on price, with Taylor claiming the tools would be "free of damn near free."

We shall see...