It has not runaway Microsoft's mind that some of the coolest websites on the Web - YouTube and MySpace included - get much of their flash from Flash and other design programs sold by Adobe Systems Inc.

But as Microsoft gets prepared to transport its own stripe of tools for designers and Web developers, the world's major software maker finds it should also protect against Adobe on its home lawn, the desktop. At the similar time, the line between Internet and desktop programs is blurring - and both companies see an occasion to detain new business.

Microsoft Corporation is preparing to release Expression web Studio, a suite of design software that will go head-to-head with Adobe's tools, Photoshop and Illustrator. It also will contain a tool for structure multimedia programs to bring it in line with Adobe's Flash. At $599 for the suite, Expression web is a steal compared with the $1,000 or more Adobe acquires for its Web developer suites.

Expression Web, a Web authoring tool to compete with Adobe's Dreamweaver, is previously on the market. Last week, the company said its Flash-like browser plug-in, Silverlight, may be launched in beta at the final of the month. Both programs allow multimedia presentations that work in spite of the user's Web browser or operating system.

Meanwhile, Adobe in the process of distribution its Creative Suite 3, an upgrade to Photoshop and other core programs. Adobe touted smoother mixing with Flash and Dreamweaver, which the company captured when it bought Macromedia Inc. nearly two years ago.

This is the newest clash between the two as Microsoft, dominant in operating system and desktop software, sizes up the smaller, Web-savvy Adobe. The software companies also are competing over their standards for the paperless office and tools for displaying content on and developing applications for mobile phones and handheld computers.

Microsoft, whose core loyalists are the millions of developers who build desktop programs, has small history with professional designers. While its proletarian Web authoring tool, FrontPage, racked up more sales at retail than competing products in 2006, Web professionals have been argumentative since the mid-1990s the code it generates doesn't toil well with non-Microsoft Web browsers.

This time with, Microsoft said Expression Web will produce HTML and other code that comply with industry standards. It's also discontinue FrontPage.

Forest Key, the creative-sector veteran Microsoft hired to direct the Expression web Studio charge, recognized that the company is getting well beyond its customary base, but said the company desires designers in order to continue competitive as software evolves.

Microsoft's Expression web tools will also allow graphic designers try their hand at preparing desktop software. In the past, designers designed in Photoshop, then handed a still picture off to programmers, who often had a tough time translating it into a functioning Web site or application. Expression web programs let designers draw and manipulate images using a familiar interface, but behind the scenes the tools also generate code programmers can work with.

"Creating Windows applications before was like this black art," said Lee Brimelow, a senior design technologist at Frog Design who has been working with Microsoft's latest tools to design Yahoo Inc.'s instant messaging client for Windows Vista. Now, you "don't have to be a Microsoft programming geek to do it."

Microsoft also is looking a new type of applications that combine the power of desktop programs with Web-style multimedia, design and data from different sources. The software developers recently showed off the TimesReader, a fusion version of the New York Times' Web site built with Expression web tools, that lets users download the news, then click around a Web-like interface even when offline.

Microsoft points out that its fusion applications can take benefit of a local PC's graphics card to create intricate 3-D interfaces, for example, that could be not possible with older Web tools.

Adobe isn't sitting idle.

Apollo, as Adobe calls the before time version of its fusion technology, lets Web developers and designers cover up all the pieces of a complicated Web site - Ajax coding HTML and, animation and Flash videos, and even PDFs - and turn them into a program that can run on the desktop even if the computer is offline.

Early, Adobe launched one of its first Apollo-based programs, a media player that plays Flash video from the desktop.