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On 3/22/06, Robyn Richards <robynrrr -at- hotmail -dot- com> wrote:
> A while back I seem to recall a post on becoming a Microsoft 'affiliate'
> which then allowed access to various Microsoft products for a yearly
> membership cost.
Robyn,
If you are a small IT development or consulting operation that sells
or develops solutions using Microsoft products, there is a very
affordable (and completely legitimate) way to obtain licensed copies
of Microsoft software. Sign yourself/your company up for Microsoft's
Partner Program if you're a consultant, or the Microsoft Developers
Network (MSDN) if you're a developer.
I am a member of the Partners program, so I can only speak to that.
As a registered Microsoft Partner (the application for basic
membership is free and takes about twenty minutes to fill out; all
information is subject to validation and in my experience was in fact
validated, but Microsoft's criteria for acceptance are pretty basic)
you are eligible to subscribe to the MAPS (Microsoft Action Pack)
program.
What does MAPS get you? For $299 a year, you get not-for-resale
licensed copies (supporting up to ten installations) of basically
everything in Microsoft's productivity, operating system (including
server O/S) and collaboration-tools line. This means: Microsoft
Office 2003 Professional (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Publisher,
FrontPage); Microsoft Visio; Microsoft Project; Microsoft OneNote,
etc. on the productivity side, and Server 2003, Sharepoint Portal
Server 2003, etc. on the server side. With free quarterly updates and
a couple of prepaid "support incidents" tossed in to sweeten the pot.
Buying any one of these applications new at retail would cost more
than $299, especially pricey ones like Project 2003 (the Standard
version of which has a street price around $400, with Pro being much
more expensive); this is one of the best deals going for small
consulting organizations.
MSDN is generally more expensive, but considering that you can set
yourself up with Microsoft's complete suite of development tools plus
support, it's a pretty great deal too.
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