There is a huge, huge announcement by Scott Guthrie this morning about the new WebsiteSpark Program being offered by Microsoft that complements their BizSpark and DreamSpark programs. This is great news for independent web developers who develop websites for people. I also see WebsiteSpark useful for those unemployed in this bad economy looking to build websites for people but who cannot afford to purchase the development tools.
The bottom line is this. Per Scott:
“WebSiteSpark provides software licenses that you can use for three years at no cost. Once enrolled, you can download and immediately use the following software from Microsoft:
- 3 licenses of Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition
- 1 license of Expression Studio 3 (which includes Expression Blend, Sketchflow, and Web)
- 2 licenses of Expression Web 3
- 4 processor licenses of Windows Web Server 2008 R2
- 4 processor licenses of SQL Server 2008 Web Edition
- DotNetPanel control panel (enabling easy remote/hosted management of your servers) “
The Windows Server and SQL Server licenses can be used for both development and production deployment. You can either self-host the servers on your own, or use the licenses with a hoster...”
They are making this real easy to get website development and production software.
Check out Scott's post as well as the WebsiteSpark website.
Now that you have the software, get over to the Tampa ASP.NET MVC Developer Group for assistance on how to use the development and production software :)
Great stuff!
David Hayden