Microsoft DreamSpark: Getting on the good side with students

Microsoft recently made the announcement that it is going to become a more open software platform. Meaning that it will stop suing opensource software developers as well as make their products easier for developers to add to. As part of this announcement they also released the DreamSpark program for college students. Microsoft is offering free versions of 13 different pieces of software to any college student. The software can be found here for download. Microsoft does make sure that you are an enrolled college student and this can be a pain to prove sometimes (I had to email a copy of my student ID). Some software included is:

• Visual Studio 2008 Professional
• Visual Web Developer 2005
• Windows Server 2003
• XNA Game Studio + 12 month xbox subscription to upload your own game
• SQL Server 2005

I think Microsoft is making a good step with this program. They are trying to get another generation using Microsoft programs, and with the amount of free and open source software available today this is becoming much harder to do.