Bizspark only costs $100 for startups, and you only pay after 3 years of usage. It's a similar package to Tech Net. You essentially get free licenses to almost everything MSFT owns for 3 years if you're a startup. http://www.microsoftstartupzone.com/BizSpark/Pages/At_a_Glan...

I've been using the service for 6 months. It's dreamy, and I haven't seen a single string attached. It's worth it just to get copies of Office Unlimited.

MSFT is the low cost option for startups.

the catch is after 3 years you have to start paying for all the server software and tools you're now using with free glee.

it's sort of like a crack dealers sales approach - get them fixed on it then make them pay.

warren

A) You don't need to sign your posts

B) The idea is that you should be profitable in 3 years in order to pay for the software. If you want to do anything on the Microsoft stack, it is a really good deal.

I wonder why Adobe doesn't offer anything similar.

I think it's because Adobe doesn't really have any competitors in its marketspace (aside from Flash).

Adobe's bread and butter is still the Creative Suite. It doesn't view GIMP, Inkspace, etc. as a big enough threat, so why give it away for free?

Microsoft on the other hand, is competing with Java for most developer mindshare (in the "conventional" space) and RoR, Django, PHP (in the "unconventional" space). Microsoft also knows that the GNU C++ compiler isn't half-bad, and additionally with the license change in Qt, it's even easier.

Microsoft wants to nurture small microsoft shops in case they become big microsoft shops one day. It's a way to keep the ecosystem thriving!

Once Adobe has a competitor that can compete on technical merit (and not just, "use this b/c it's free!"), then maybe Adobe can consider something similar.

It's very, very, hard to compete on price. If that's your business strategy, you're going to fail in the long-run. You have to have some amount of technical innovation in your product.

If MS's Silverlight catches on, Adobe and Flash will have some competition. But it seems most designers I know have some sort of serious pathological dislike of Microsoft so it seems rather unlikely.

I bet Adobe get a larger proportion of their income from small businesses and freelancers for their products than Microsoft do for Office.

Also Adobe products are sold to a subset of a company where MS tends to endup on everyones desk. So getting a startup hooked is far more valueble for MS than it is for Adobe.

Microsoft benefits immensely from having programmers building things that run on Microsoft technology. It's the consequences of the tool use that are important, not the tool use itself. Adobe, conversely, doesn't gain anything from having images in the wild that were drawn by Adobe tools. Adobe is a tool company, so they charge for tools.

There's a good Joel Spolsky quote saying that the only reason Microsoft doesn't give its development tools away for free is to avoid accidentally cutting off the air to the 3rd party vendors who build and sell add-ons. There needs to be a little money changing hands in that space so that companies are used to spending money on tools, and therefore are willing to pay for things like ReSharper, Ants Profiler and CodeSmith.

FTA: "WARNING: Using the trick above to subscribe to TechNet Plus without participating in the research activities is in fact illegal, and the subscription may be revoked and made inactive anytime (proof from 1/1/1900 expiration date)."

I don't know about illegal, but it might very well violate their terms of service, etc.

The link submitted is for UK. Not sure if it makes a difference, but there are different links for US https://om2.one.microsoft.com/offer/technet_na.aspx and Canada https://om2.one.microsoft.com/offer/technet_can.aspx

It's down now.

"Server Error in '/offer' Application."

just received an email letting me know they've deactivated my account:

"Microsoft contracted with us, Intrepid Consultants, Inc, to conduct the TechNet Plus Pilot Study program research and manage the activities of the pilot study. Our records show that you have recently signed up for a free TechNet Plus subscription through a registration link that was made available without authorization on a public blog.

The registration link is part of a proprietary study and the party that shared the information was in violation of the terms and conditions to which they agreed to participate in the study. Membership to the Pilot study is limited and all members of the program are required to first meet survey requirements and then complete tasks and assignments over a two month period in order to qualify for and have access to the free TechNet Plus subscription. Since this was a privately conducted pilot study, at no time was it ever intended that a free TechNet Plus registration link would appear on a public internet site, which was done in violation of the terms to which participants agreed upon registering to participate in the pilot study.

We are very sorry for the inconvenience, but for this reason, we have deactivated your subscription, as well as all other subscriptions resulting from the unauthorized publication of the TechNet Plus Pilot Study program registration link on a public blog. Again, we apologize for any inconvenience.

Kind regards,

The Intrepid Consultants Team "

It says "Pilot". Could it be a trial of some sort?

A year's trial, and this is awesome. Verified as costing £0.00 !

edit: keys generate for me just fine (I'm using Opera as it doesnt seem to work in IE7), and the downloads also work.

Make sure you have registered your Subscriber Benefit Access Number (BAN) number on your receipt to activate your account!

I've also subscribed and subscription expiration says: 1/1/1900

Product keys don't seem to work though...

EDIT: I mean the site won't generate any keys for you.

Use internet explorer (never thought I'd say this). You need to accept an add-in called "MS transfer manager".

The site generates keys but seems a bit buggy, also can't verify which of these products need a key.

At least it generates a key for Applications > Office XP > Office XP Professional - CD (English) : JPXQJ-...

Some keys show up others don't, I'll upgrade my IE to 8, let's see what happens.

Edit: After update to IE8 I get a descent error warning: "An Error Has Occurred: There was an error error while trying to retrieve requsted key information and we cannot process your request.

You can try to:

- your browser and retry the operation again in a few minutes.

- Contact Support

- Read the On-Line Self Help

Reference Id: 19497582

This error has been logged with the reference number noted above. Please use this reference number if you contact support."

I did have a few keys that worked (Office XP, 2003) but most do not work.

Now all the keys and downloads are greyed out.

Are you using the key against the installation media provided via TechNet? I've tried applying my MSDN keys with Windows Vista DVDs I've had laying about with no luck before, but then I burned the .iso provided by MS and it went off without a hitch.

I can confirm that the links and downloads do not seem to work.

I just get an error saying that my information couldn't be verified:

We are unable to validate your customer information and proceed with your order at this time.

Can anyone confirm this?

I can confirm that the downloads seem to work (but only in IE) but the keys do not work, you cannot generate any keys.

key generation works just fine for me in opera

Which version of Opera are you using and on what OS?

phish?

it doesn't include VAT (value added tax)

why all the negatives? I did have to hack the page to use it, still signed up though.