I'm sure that Alfred Thompson from Microsoft will be blogging more about this free giveaway.
Great news if you are a college student you can get Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition, Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition, Expression Studio, XNA Game Studio 2.0 with a free year-long subscription to the XNA Creators Club, SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition and Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard Edition. When Windows Server 2008 is released to MSDN, it will be available to students as well.
Bill Gates wants to "equip a new generation of technology leaders with the knowledge and tools they need to harness the magic of software."
The program is called DreamSpark and students in 10 countries will be able to access the software via the Microsoft Channel 8 website.
This really is incredible for Microsoft to do this. Students have been using the Express version of these products for a while now but getting the real thing is nice. I'm not sure what they will do with Windows Server software but what the heck throw it in with the rest. Geek students have been working with Linux for years now so maybe they might want to work with it.
Now, reality sets in after this free give away. Is there going to be training on how to use it. The answer is NO from Microsoft! Unless you call tutorials on a website training. That's all that will be available for students.
What kind of training is available for teachers who need to teach this software for the"new generation of technology leaders"? You know the answer, right?
It's great to give out the tools, but you need to follow through with some face to face training.
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