Our version of Microsoft Expression Blend Preview for Silverlight 5 has expired on 30th June and there are NO online license purchase options available.
The following link states that Blend is now an integral part of Visual Studio 2012, but with our current constrained development and release cycle we do not have the option to upgrade our entire enterprise class application to VS 2012. So, my questions are:
Can Blend (Preview for SL 5) licenses be purchased online? If yes, where?
If not, then how can we continue our Blend based development without upgrading to VS 2012?
Unfortunately, Microsoft left us down. The only option is to go with Visual Studio 2012, as it includes Blend with it, but bear in mind, it is not smooth, buggy and crashes more than the Preview version for Silverlight 5. I've even created a bug report on Microsoft connect, which was deleted strangely by microsoft.
PS : I tested the Update 1, Update 2 and Update 3, all of these on solution containing work done in silverlight 5 and telerik controls. It takes 15 minutes to open, and then crashes, this issues was not detected on Preview Version
For Now, We are changing the system date to a date before June 30, Open Blend Preview, and then fix again the system date (because if you don't, you will have nightmare with Skype and outlook :) )