Last week I mentioned that I had been given the task of researching the benefits and costs of purchasing an MSDN subscription. After comparing different MSDN subscriptions options, here is what I have come up with:
- MSDN subscriptions home page
- MSDN subscriptions comparison chart
- I believe we only need “Visual Studio Professional with MSDN Professional”.
- It comes with our development IDE, SQL Server and necessary operating systems.
- When the next version of Visual Studio (Orcas) is released later this year, we will automatically receive the upgrade.
- We currently have no plans to develop Microsoft office related applications.
- At this juncture, Visual Studio Team Edition would be overkill.
- Where can we buy, and how much will it cost?
- Amazon.com has been the cheapest online retailer I have found
- Ebay has come in even cheaper:
- Microsoft Visual Studio Pro with MSDN Pro 2005 2-year subscription ($1,050.00)
- Pertinent licensing information
- Software included in MSDN Subscriptions is provided with rights to design, develop, test and demonstrate your software applications.
- Licensed users may install included content on any number of devices for these purposes only.
- Only the licensed subscriber may use the included products. This means that we will need a license for each of our developers.
- MSDN subscriptions have a perpetual license, so subscribers can still use the products received with their MSDN subscription after their subscription has expired.
- See the MSDN Subscription FAQ for more information.
In short, I suggest that we purchase Microsoft Visual Studio Professional with MSDN Professional 2005 2-year subscription for $1,050.00 from an Ebay reseller. I have weighed the cost with the benefits, and believe that it is an excellent value. When I was self employed I felt that this was such an exceptional value that I spent $1100.00 for a 1-year MSDN subscription, and that was nearly 5 years ago.