Ed Andersen

Software Developer and Architect in Japan

Free pro Microsoft tools for students

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Wow. Microsoft has just launched “DreamSpark” – a programme that lets higher education students download pro Microsoft development tools – not the cut-down Express versions of Visual Studio, but the full Professional editions. UK Microsoft student champ Ed Dunhill sums it up the best on his blog here.

You get access to:

  • Visual Studio 2008 Pro
  • The whole Expression suite
  • SQL Server 2005 Developer edition
  • Windows Server 2003 Standard (and hopefully soon 2008)
  • The best bit is a whole years XNA Creators Club subscription FREE! This costs £65 normally with no real free alternative to get games running on the Xbox.

This is evidently a battle against pirated versions of the above products and this is the perfect way to do it. To enroll in the programme, your University needs to provide a Single Sign On authentication system to verify you or you need a ISIC card or NUS Extra card. Unfortunately, Oxford Brookes doesnt have a SSO Auth system (and I doubt they ever will – Oxford Uni does though) so I have had to order an NUS Extra card for a tenner to get in. Your status as a higher education student needs to be verified once a year, so students leaving Uni soon should sign up quick. Other than the XNA Creators Club subscription, I don’t think the products have time limits.

Expect Adobe to follow suit soon with their products if they want to get students hooked – although the academic discounts on Adobe CS3 stuff are great (only £400 for the Master Suite, down from £2500…) students will still pirate. Give students free access to professional tools and they’ll get hooked on them and buy them when they are earning a living.

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About me

Hi! 👋 I’m a Software Developer, Architect and Consultant living in Japan, building web and cloud apps. Here I write about software development and other things I find interesting. Read more about my background.

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Comments

One response to “Free pro Microsoft tools for students”

  1. Roeland Avatar

    Hi,

    stumbled across this by accident. Can you tell me if Adobe accept ISIC or NUS Extra for their academic license discount?

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