Microsoft Office Professional 2007 Microsoft aims

Microsoft is trying a new tactic to get more college students thinking about creating for the Windows platform: It;s likely to give them the advancement tools for totally free.In the course of a talk entitled “On Software, Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Giving Back” at Stanford University on February 19, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates is set to unveil the Microsoft “DreamSpark” program. Via this program, Microsoft will make Visual Studio Professional Edition (both the 2005 and 2008 variants); Expression Studio, its family of design instruments; SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition; and Windows Server, Standard Edition, among other tools, available to college college students — and eventually high-school pupils, as well — for free of charge.According to Microsoft, 35 million college pupils in Belgium, China, Finland, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the U.K. and the U.S. qualify for your program immediatly. Microsoft will extend it to high school students throughout the coming year. Company officials said the program potentially could reach up to 1 billion college students worldwide.(In case you were wondering how Microsoft will make sure only college students will get access to the free instruments, Microsoft plans to verify individuals; student status by using “various reputable student databases to confirm student identities,” a Microsoft spokeswoman said. Students will choose the identity provider that maintains the database (i.e. their school, organization, or other academic-based group) that will confirm their student status, she explained.)All this sounds impressive and quite generous, on Microsoft;s part. However, the reality is that many university pupils already have access to Microsoft;s resources for free via their unversities. And Java and open-source improvement instruments like PHP already have a strong following among students — making Microsoft;s new program look additional like a defensive move than an entirely philanthropic one.Microsoft;s new tool give-away is “a positive improvement but not completely unprecedented,” said Charles King Principal Analyst, with Pund-IT, Inc., based in Hayward,Microsoft Office Professional 2007, Calif. “Other vendors provide colleges/universities a variety of no cost or subsidized support programs, but what;s interesting with Microsoft;s effort is that they;re putting the equipment directly in students; hands.”While “Microsoft already makes (no cost) ‘Express; versions of Visual Studio available for casual users, making the Professional editions available will give a lot more advanced students the opportunity to explore these resources further, and better prepare them for careers as developers because they will have had access to the same tools that today;s companies are using,” said Mark Frydenberg, Senior Lecturer and Software Specialist in the Computer Information Systems Department at Bentley School.Microsoft has a number of student outreach programs. But it has no choice but to do far more to get the next generation of tech users and developers on its side. Macs already are the dominant computing platform at many a school these days. Microsoft needs new ways to ensure that Windows, Visual Studio and SQL Server aren;t relegated to little additional than the history books….