No, this is not an April Fool’s Joke that is just a day late. The image above comes from the SharePoint Designer Online Office Site and as the download link shows SharePoint Designer is now a FREE download. You can find an open letter from Microsoft here that explains the change. The key points as explained by the letter are these:
- Starting on April 1, 2009, Microsoft is making SharePoint Designer 2007 available as a free download.
- Customers with SharePoint Designer 2007 Software Assurance (SA) current as of April 1, 2009 will receive upgrade rights to Expression Web for the lifetime of their SA agreement.