Add-in Express dramatically simplifies the process of creating and deploying Office add-ins. For instance, when creating an add-in, you can specify which versions of Office you want to support, beginning with an "Office neutral" option that supports all versions beginning with Office 2000. You can also, when starting your project, specify which Office components you want to support - Add-in Express automatically generates the necessary support code. In addition to general support for Office, Add-in Express offers support for some specific Office technologies. You can use Add-in Express to simplify the process of extending the Outlook shortcut bar, creating Smart Tags or creating Excel Real Time Data components. You'll still have to learn how to manipulate the object models for the various Office components, but Add-in Express makes integrating your code into Office almost trivial. II can no longer imagine doing Office development in the .NET Framework without this tool.