A recent move from Microsoft is designed to open up the first commercial example of the company’s surface computing technology to developers worldwide. Specifically, the Redmond company is no longer restricting access to the software development kit for Microsoft Surface. As of earlier this month, all developers are free to grab their own copy of the Microsoft Surface SDK 1.0 Service Pack 1 (SP1) Workstation Edition via the Microsoft Download Center.

However, devs will not get the actual Surface SDK. Microsoft is offering the fully-fledged Surface SDK only to developers willing to pay for it, as that version of the software development kit comes complete with the actual Surface tabletop computer. The Workstation Edition of the Surface SDK will still enable developers to build Microsoft Surface touch-enabled applications; however, they will have to do so leveraging a workstation and not the actual Microsoft Surface unit.

“Now anyone interested in developing collaborative, engaging massive multi-touch, multi-user experiences for Surface can easily access the software at no cost through Surface.com. The Surface hardware is needed to deploy an application, and many use the Surface Developer units to create and test their applications directly on the device. The SDK Workstation Editi... (read more)