At PDC this week, Surface team announced the broad availability of the Microsoft Surface SDK Workstation Edition. Now anyone interested in developing collaborative, engaging massive multi-touch, multi-user experiences for Surface can easily access the software at no cost through surface.com.

Previously, to design and build applications for the Surface, one needed to purchase a Surface Development unit, which as you might expect has a hefty price tag. You still need a Surface to deploy your application, but now the SDK Workstation Edition lets you use a PC to develop and a PC-based emulator to test applications with multiple mice & tag simulation tools.

Following links are enough to get the Microsoft Surface SDK 1.0 SP1 Workstation Edition, documentation, and everything else you need to build touch-enabled applications. There are also some UX guidelines, related resources, and a community section to ask your questions.

Surface Web site

• New Technical Resources section so prospective and existing customers and partners can quickly connect to the resources they need to learn more about Surface or get support on issues.

MSDN

• New Microsoft Surface section of the MSDN Library (under .NET Development), providing the Surface SDK documentation and other topics about developing Surface applications.
• New Surface-specific forums about designing and developing Surface applications.

TechNet

• New Microsoft Surface section of the TechNet Library (under Products and Technologies), describing the basics of the Surface software and hardware and how to set up, customize, troubleshoot, and maintain Surface units.
• New Surface-specific forums about the Surface software platform, hardware, and applications.

Microsoft Download Center

• All Surface downloads, including the Surface SDK Workstation Edition, applications, documentation, and any software fixes.

Microsoft Support

• Public KB articles for fixes, known issues, and workarounds.
• Surface Solution Center to direct customers to the right self-support and assisted-support options

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