Edging into the competitive space dominated by publishing software giant Adobe, Microsoft has released the second preview of its graphic design tool, Acrylic.

Acrylic is the codename for Microsoft’s illustration and graphics design product that is currently under development.

The product is based on the software that Microsoft acquired in 2003 when it bought Creature House, a Hong Kong-based company that developed digital illustration and painting software. Creature House’s product, Expression, was in the market for nearly seven years before Microsoft acquired it and turned it into Acrylic.

Microsoft released the first preview of Acrylic to developers in June. The second release was announced Monday.

Ruling the Roost

So far, Microsoft has stayed out of the professional graphics and publishing industry and let Adobe rule the roost. But with Acrylic, it hopes to get just a foothold into that market and expand its reach.

More than 200,000 copies of Acrylic have been downloaded since its first release, said Forest Keys, group product manager for Microsoft’s developer division.

Microsoft has said that it will not bundle Acrylic with Windows Vista, the next version of Microsoft’s operating system. (See Hasta La Vista Microsoft.) Instead, it will sell the product as a separate package, similar to Adobe’s marketing of its products.

This strategy could put the company on a collision course with Adobe, acknowledged Mr. Keys.

“Acrylic does have some good features that overlap with Macromedia and Corel,” he said. “But most professional creative designers tend to use multiple products.”

Adobe is in the process of merging with Macromedia, which owns Fireworks.

Backfire Potential

Microsoft’s strategy could backfire, said Jamie Friedman, analyst with Fulcrum Global Partners, a New York-based securities firm.

“I think it’s game over in the authoring tools market,” said Mr. Friedman. “Adobe and Macromedia have won the race.”

Mr. Friedman said it is unlikely Microsoft will be able to make a dent in the professional segment. But if it plans to bundle the product for consumers, it could have greater success in gathering users for the product, he said.

“I don’t know any artists that use Microsoft authoring tools for graphical design,” said Mr. Friedman. “But consumers… yes, they could buy it.”

Aimed at Pros

Acrylic is aimed at professional designers working on user interface (UI) design for deployment in an application for Windows Vista, said Mr. Keys.

Acrylic allows designers to export design elements in the XAML (Extensible Application Markup Language) file format, which is an extension of XML, or Extensible Markup Language. The XAML file authored by the designers can be used by developers to build applications.

Normally designers and developers work separately. Designers create interfaces that are handed over to developers who use programming languages to recreate the design using code.

That will change with the usage of Acrylic, Mr. Keys said.

“Designers using Acrylic can directly hand over their UI design to developers who can use and then build on it without having to recreate it,” he said.

The latest release of Acrylic contains improvements based on user feedback to its earlier preview, including the easy insertion of elements into Microsoft PowerPoint and Office applications.

The product can handle both pixel-based and vector-based elements, making it a hybrid graphics authoring tool, similar to Macromedia’s Fireworks.