Microsoft announces WebsiteSpark – get the MS web platform and development tools for FREE

Microsoft has just announced Website Spark -- a major new initiative designed to help the web development community.

You can now use the full range of products that make up Microsoft's awesome web platform at zero cost -- including server, database and development tools!

The scheme is designed to help get people started on the web -- and is particularly aimed at individual web developers, entrepreneurs, start-ups, and entry-level enterprises, who can now use the MS web platform for three years completely free of charge.

The free stuff from Microsoft includes the following products, all of which can also be upgraded for free as soon as a newer version is released:-

• Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition (3 licenses) -- the IDE for .NET development
• Expression Studio 3 -- Expression Blend, Sketchflow, and Web, tools for web design, Silverlight, etc
• Expression Web 3 (2 licenses)
• Windows Web Server 2008 R2 (4 processor licenses) -- essentially Windows 7 Server
• SQL Server 2008 (4 processor licenses) -- Web Edition
• DotNetPanel control panel -- remote/hosted server management)

Earlier today when Scott Guthrie, the top guy at Microsoft for developers, said on Twitter he was about to hold a press conference for a big announcement -- I was not expecting it to be this big!

This is obviously very big news, and very good news for web developers, and indeed exciting news for anybody who wants to try doing something cool on the web.

http://www.microsoft.com/web/websitespark/

24 September 2009

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