"Microsoft is announcing right now DreamSpark, a new program that gives free developer, designer and related software to college students in 11 countries. DreamSpark goes live today in Belgium, China, Finland, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States, and gives away free stuff like Visual Studio, Expression Studio, and even Windows Server.
For gamers and game designers, an exciting inclusion in the program is the XNA Game Studio 2.0 software (as opposed to the free Express Edition), as well as a 12-month free membership in the XNA Creators Club, which means free running of XNA games on the Xbox 360.
The full list of free software:
Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition
Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition
XNA Game Studio 2.0
12-month free membership in the XNA Creators Club
Expression Studio, which includes Expression Web, Expression Blend, Expression Design and Expression Media
SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition
Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition
Sql Server Developer Edition
Virtual PC 2007
Visual Basic 2005
Visual C++ 2005
Visual C# 2005
Visual J# 2005
Visual Web Developer 2005
Were talking over $2,000 in free software, just for being a college student. Were talking a huge gift to students, letting classes teach this stuff without software costs, lettings students develop software without these costs, and letting any student pick up some stuff to play around with without a monetary commitment.
Students will go to Microsoft's Channel 8 site to download any of the software, following a third-party authentication process to verify they are a current student."
That's a pretty sweet deal; I'm in just for the free copy of Windows Server 2003, nevermind all the other stuff. If it's free, it's for me!