Microsoft to give out development tools to students

Gates said many designers opt for Adobe's design software because they are more familiar with it and the company could benefit if students become more comfortable working with Microsoft's design tools.

Microsoft said it will also make available XNA Game Studio software development tools for writing video games and a free one-year membership to the "XNA Creators Club" so they can bring those games to the Xbox 360 platform.

"For the individual developer ... getting their hands on these tools hasn't been that simple," Gates said.

In the past, Microsoft has made development and design software available to students, but it was up to the universities to register for the program. As a result, most of the students who took advantage of the program tended to be computer science students at major universities.

Gates said he hopes this latest initiative will deepen the pool of potential developers as well as the fields of study where software can lead to breakthroughs.

For Reuters MediaFile blog see: blogs.reuters.com/mediafile/

(Reporting by Daisuke Wakabayashi, Editing by Ian Geoghegan)