Microsoft DreamSpark

[Chinmay Patel]

In a recent past, it seems, Microsoft is going towards controlled Openness, while they are not 100% open source, there has been a lot of movement on Open Source. Let it be the sharing with their Application Protocols or let it be the sharing of important code-knowledge of Vista Internals to Anti-Virus developers around the world, add OOXML to it too. One more exciting movement, it is not being open-source though, it is VERY important for all wanna-be Microsoft Developers in Student community across the world.

 

It is no other than...Microsoft DreamSpark(Literally its gonna spark a lot of dreams in some students out there.. I AM SO DAMN SURE...)

 

According to the official site of Microsoft DreamSpark "Microsoft DreamSpark enables students to download Microsoft developer and design tools at no charge."

DreamSpark is simple, it's all about giving students Microsoft professional-level developer and design tools at no charge so you can chase your dreams and create the next big breakthrough in technology - or just get a head start on your career.

Who can get this right now?
We are kicking this off in 11 countries/regions, giving DreamSpark to millions of students in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, China, Germany, France, Finland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Belgium.[Unfortunately India is not in the list as of now, somehow I feel we will be the very next one to get it, only problem is we DO NOT have a single nation-wide Student Information System] If you are not residing in one of the countries listed keep checking back, we will be adding more countries throughout the year.

Does that mean that I might not get in?
Possibly, if you are not residing in one of the countries listed, not attending an accredited university or not a member of one of the student organizations that we're connected with. But keep checking back, as we're working on adding more ways to verify your student status all the time.

Apart from attracting more and more students/universities to Microsoft platform I am damn sure this is yet another Sweet Microsoft moves that will give deep impact to the freetards out there. Now think from an average student's mind set. Risk-Free, world class, 100% legal software development product, an AWESOME Server OS and a next generation Database system. Ofcourse following this will come large events, worldwide contest/s to attract more and more student wannabe-developers to Microsoft platform and one dream I have been seeing since a long time, [Kicking freetards and their free-tarts out of the colleges/universities] might come true. Put freetard and other goodies in a same arena where Students learn and see the difference between the two at the same time and see who comes out as a clear winner. I know it will take time.. but you know... one thing .. Microsoft is best at.. Chasing the goal with unmatched Passion. :)

Any thoughts?

Chinmay

[Mrinal KAPOOR]

Its of no USE to us :(  , how cme we download it and use .. ?

[Chinmay Patel]

Read the mail dude...Read the mail.. it clearly says as of now it is not available in India. Once it is available. I will show you how you can download it. :)

 

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Chinmay

[Arpan Patelia]

I doubt, a student running those tools might be sending his computer usage info to M$ without knowing about it. This will be a great offense to a person's privacy but M$ must have taken care of this by having an escape door in EULA(anyways who reads complete EULA while installing a program?).

Also, I assume that M$ will put a small footprint like "this .exe/.dll was created using so and so tool(read one of the at no charge tools)" but that's fair in my opinion as to track the usage of toolkits. Later on this can be used for catching people using free toolkits for business purpose.

If you talk about attracting universities/schools to M$ then I would say that neither M$ nor OpenSource can demolish the other one. Both will co-exist and people like me will get benefit from the best of both world. Just give a thought if the old good "Hello World..!!" program was not an OpenSource code?

My opinion towards M$' unmatched passion is - "If you can not win it, buy it". That's what M$ did with SCO UNIX(read they could not stop rising Unix/Linux popularity at that time) and tried  same thing with Y!(read they can not win against google all alone by themselves at least not at this time) but with no luck so far. I must admit that M$ is the best 'copy-cat'er probably because of their unmatched passion. :-P Now question is what M$ sets as their goal, a winning product or a company? If a winning product then M$ failed on both the occasions mentioned above and if a company is M$'s goal then they failed on the second occasion.
Microsoft's unmatched passion - <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvsboPUjrGc> enjoy..!!!

Keeping that ongoing crusade aside, in the end it seems a good move by M$ as it will provide students with a chance to use professional tools while studying and this may be useful in reducing software piracy... :-)

Any speed-breakers? Yes you thought it right, after all it's M$..!!! :-P Everything will go good if things like <http://www.enews20.com/news_Windows_Genuine_Advantage_Malfunctions_02336.html> and  <http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?p=15773> do not happen.


Arpan

[Chinmay Patel]

I doubt, a student running those tools might be sending his computer usage info to M$ without knowing about it. This will be a great offense to a person's privacy but M$ must have taken care of this by having an escape door in EULA(anyways who reads complete EULA while installing a program?).

 

I won't go in to the details about how the biggest thief of your personal information so far is Google and how things can go wrong when you really start trusting google with your information[http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=539&tag=nl.e550] and most interestingly they have a better plan then M$'s EULA strategy, ha ha ha.. when I was in first year BCA, I used it, label my software as Beta[Rikin, Do you remember SkyChat Beta? v 0.1 :D]. And yes we did MANY other things[Left to you to guess...] apart from providing simple chat to innocent students. So stealing of information is fine as long as it remains with the thief in our case dear Google is really poor when it comes to take care of stolen private information from the user's desktop. Yes, people using Google Desktop tools as well as toolbars are at greater risk than their web application users but if it is about user information then sorry dude I trust M$. At least they know how to encrypt data very well and transport it to the destination in a really secure manner.

 

Also, I assume that M$ will put a small footprint like "this .exe/.dll was created using so and so tool(read one of the at no charge tools)" but that's fair in my opinion as to track the usage of toolkits. Later on this can be used for catching people using free toolkits for business purpose. 

 

Now coming to the point, ofcourse M$ will do something to protect their business interest and I believe it is 100% legitimate so lets not worry about when a kiddy from 8th grade makes a proggy and goes to market to show the stuff and it wont run on any other system then his own[Just imagination, actually it is not happening, I think the applications will do run without any limitations].

 

If you talk about attracting universities/schools to M$ then I would say that neither M$ nor OpenSource can demolish the other one. Both will co-exist and people like me will get benefit from the best of both world. Just give a thought if the old good "Hello World..!!" program was not an OpenSource code?

 

And I apologize my comment on Open Source, about kicking them out was on a different context. What I was trying to say there, is an average college student when S/He comes out of the college see *ux and Java as the only thing that exist in the world. Now with .Net Juggernaut in action it is being taken care of slowly.

 

However I have some observations about our education system being blind about *uxs and Java.

1. As usual oldies who cant even step properly are in charge when it comes to course design on any level starting from primary till you graduate. I really do respect the experience however, with experience don't you think you become monotonous? you don't think out of the box, you are virtually locked in your own mindset(Prison for a mind). You become an owl who cant look at sun and then denies the existence of it.

2. *ux and Java combo is really free, runs on cheap hardware from the 90s and is really good for private money making institutes.. ooh.. I meant private colleges.

3. There is a lot of second hand material available on road side on *ux and Java since they have been in to the game.

4. When computer education started in India, around 20-25 years back, really M$ was nothing compared to *ux and Java, eventually M$ learnt and evolved somehow *ux and Java stayed in Geek Arena never thought to be user friendly and I think it was their geeky ego that stopped them to go to the common man. On other hand M$ being brave looked at the common man and responded to their needs and side by side expanded their business but somehow our education system sticked to the free stuff and never looked at M$ seriously till recent times. If it wasn't for .Net I believe even I would have been a happy Java-coder.

 

I strongly believe you should learn all the damn systems including *ux and Java[I have really good hands on experience on both, after working on Java for almost a year I switched to VB6 and I loved it so much 'cause of easiness and true Rapid Application Development style. And dont get me started on comparing Linux vs Windows Server 2003 plllllleaaazzz...], importance should be given to the one that will get you employment[Why we study? Dont tell me for the sweet-mother-of-enlightenment]. People with the strong itch for R&D in non-main stream platforms and other greater human being who want to philosophically go with something other then crowd can go on with *ux and Java.

 

And personally I feel if I didnt see Java and *ux in action how I could cherish M$ products the way I do now? :D

 

and about the M$'s Passion and the Business style dont you think we are too young to comment :D and dude..before you comment like the M$ bid for Y! has failed I recommend checking out the links given here, I was planning to write something big but... very sad...[Inside happy..outside.. a fake.. sad...face] I got these links..

Read http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9884110-7.html and http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9882977-7.html. A bad news for Y! - http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9871386-7.html and Google's initial enthusiasm to help out Y! has faded away according to WSJ : http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120284170793962811.html?mod=technology_main_whats_news

 

No Pun intended, honestly, if you really want to know what is going on with the bid, please raise it here, I will put detailed answer on the forum, ofcourse these are market views but not all the times they are useless crap.

 

So... here we are again.. I know the war is going on..and it is on a quiet large extent but then as we all know the best one will win.. so fingers are crossed. And in reality still M$ is doing a lot better than Google on all the fronts except Web based Search and Ad Revenue. And as long as

M$ wants to win a product/company.. .well... chillex.. M$ dont believe in all these ... they believe in one thing : "If you are not with US... you are out of the BUS(INESS)". :D

 

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Chinmay

[Mrinal KAPOOR]

I thought of giving a reply to the post b4 chinmay but i knew sme one btr is out there with better knowledge abt the thing , but still i agree & disagree with both of u on different points , but yeah i am happy that chinmay finally got it right that it is ultimately the end user and not the geeks who use the softwares to their potential , remember chinamy the article on "FREETARDS" :) , but yeah i agree MS means business and LInux means knowledge but these things are changing rapidly as with MS jumping into Education bandwagon with its various education initatives in india as well as this DREAM SPARK thing , and hope fully linux is also in evolution stge ( long evolution i must say ,  with more limbs coming out then required ) so linux i see is a "specially abled" ( anoder  decent name for a word called DISABLED :) ) , i dont use linux anymore asit is a pain to use Linux like wen u think u gt a btr linux anoder linux cmes into market and wokshhhh ur
mind goes out for the new one ( what the heck i have to backup my data again :( ) coz it is free u cant resisite urself by installing a new one and linux solutions quickly go degrade as linux evolution is fast ( though in wrong directions most of the times ) 
so what MS has done to to the market is that it has provided a stable ( not in the sense windows while usiing is stable , My windows still crashes a lot ) state to the market on which the developer could work & also peoples expectations dont rise much ( high expectations are directly proportianal to unstaisfaction ) , i think evolution must be complementry .

[Chinmay Patel]

I appriciate your comments bro :)

And yes there will be an eco-system[hopefully] where Lin and Win both can survive together.

 

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Chinmay