As a micro-ISV we are constantly on the lookout for great, affordable tools and libraries. The following set of tools helps us to create better software for our customers.

Of  course, the skill set, experience and motiviation of the micro-ISV are extremely important when it comes down to creating a good product. But the set of tools at his disposal are in my opinion equally important for creating, deploying, maintaining and selling his products.

So here is a list of tools and libraries that have helped us creating our products:

• RAD Controls for ASP.NET from Telerik - a set of ASP.NET that are highly customizable. Telerik provides an excellent support and knows what it takes to be a developper.
• FinalBuilder from VSoft Technologies - an automated build tool that is easy to use and extremely powerfull.
• Images from Shutterstock - high quality images at an affordable price.
• Support infrastructure from Kayako - web based support environment.
• Subversion and Tortoise - code repository and a graphical UI for accessing that repository.
• Total Commandor - best file handling tool around.
• SharpZipLib - C# based ZIP library
• PDFSharp - C# based PDF library
• RSSToolkit - RSS Toolkit
• ...

Without these tools it would even be harder to create software as a micro-ISV.

If  you happen to know other tools that help developpers fixing the same or a different problem, please let me know. Good tools are essential to our software design process.