The dirty bastards are killing TechNet. I wish they would just leave shit alone. It was the one thing that was actually a good deal. I don't mind, mind you, because I have an MSDN sub but that's not the point. I guess when you fuck Windows up so bad that no one will buy it you have to generate revenue somewhere else!
I'm slightly miffed, but I can totally see why they're getting rid of it, in fact I surprised it lasted as long as it did.
There is a lot of similarity in the services that Technet and MSDN provide and it doesn't make sense to keep both running, so that there is your official reason for them shutting it down.
However its obvious the real reason they're getting rid of it is because there are lots of people, myself included (hence being slightly miffed), that are using it as a VERY cheap way to source the entire MS back-catalogue and use it for long-term "evaluation", which you're not supposed to do.
£120 a year for access to all Microsoft software from DOS to Windows 8, and the latest full Office suites, and everything in between (it did exclude some of the more specialised versions of Windows Server).
The similarly priced MSDN subscription Is £720 a year!
It's interesting times at Microsoft all round, what with the heid of XBone leaving and not being replaced, the Windows 8 thing, the lack of success of their Surface tablets, the lack of success of their phones, the Zune and all that.
It's concerning for me, because I've only ever developed on MS platforms, and the company I work for has a main product which is pretty much SQL Server based. Most of our customers are the kind of large organisations which MS can always rely on for juicy licencing revenue, but even then, the hikes in prices for SQL 2012 and all that have given them pause for thought. Luckily, the lack of unified alternatives is enough to keep them paying for now, but with desktops looking like an increasingly outmoded concept I wonder what the corporate IT landscape will look like in 5 years?
Microsoft /always/ release poorly thought out products and ideas, what's so different now? I don't see desktops (laptops) as being outmoded just yet, at the risk of coming all over Xen, tablets and phones are great for consuming, even some limited production (drawing on the Galaxy Note is ace), but there's still a hell of a lot I wouldn't dream of doing without a 'proper' computer.
Yup that's what I did too, but how did they think we wouldn't? No one is going to install something to eval and then uninstall it! I don't have the lab type setup where I can just set shit up to test. I do it in a few VM's but not like I should really.
Yeah that's a good point. IMO they are trying to force everyone to the cloud and become a services company like Big Blue has done. I just can't seem to stand the thought of paying for my software on a monthly basis, but I'm sure enterprise will eventually get on board.
I just hope it works out as well for them as it has for Adobe, with someone cracking the online version of CS on the first day. Sorry, I take that back. When they decide to force us all into cloud services I should have a solid Linux foundation.
Ahh well. Guess we'll have to turn to piracy to evaluate things (and I'm miffed at losing my Technet account at work as well - used legally too I might add).