Well, this time it's about the student competition. We know that the Expression line used in the competition is still in beta stage. Well guess what, Microsoft have decided to rewrite the Expression Graphic Designer!
For those of you not yet in the know, Expression Graphic Designer (EGD) is actually a bought software. In plain English, there's a graphic design software, Microsoft thought it'll be cool to add this to their portfolio, then they bought the company. Microsoft rebranded the product as EGD, added XAML support, and released it to the public.
The latest CTP of EGD is no longer called EGD. It's called Expression Design (ED), and it's a right move. ED is not EGD, from user point-of-view. It has the looks of Expression Blend (was Expression Interactive Designer), but only a small fraction of EGD.
A lot of features from EGD like Vector Layer and PhotoMontage is gone. Some basic features like Live Effects and Image Crop(!) is also not available, yet. So it's either they rewritten the whole app, or EGD is thought to be too powerful for users.
There's also a change in file format. The EGD uses .xpr file format, while ED uses the new .design format. Both are incompatible to each other, and ED provided a converter feature of .xpr formats.
The problem to bubuawards is that participants are not in the know of these changes. It's also bad for Microsoft publicity since recent downloader will see a crippled version from what was a great design software. Worse, ED uses trial and expiration, and it expires at 1 January 2007. So practically, ED is unusable for bubuawards.
IMO, bubuawards committee should provide more information about these changes (I'm sure they're not even aware of this), and provide links to the last release of EGD (September 2006) if they intend to empower competitors.