What are the differences between the Explorer and Professional editions?
The main difference is that the Explorer edition comes with a fixed set of over 200 software components for building hundreds of different types of applications limited only by your imagination. The Professional editions come with some additional components, but most importantly the Professional edition allows you to customize the included components, create your own from scratch, and add any of thousands of available 3rd party custom controls and components. The Professional edition also allows you to add any of the hundreds of available custom 3rd party IDE plug-ins to extend the capabilities and features of the IDE.