My MSDN Subscription came today, and after all the freaking out, it turns out that they didn't even ask for proof of a prior product, and even if they had, technically I did have a qualifying product for the upgrade. So I got the older "Enterprise" version for $1,400, which is already upgraded to the newer "Team System for Software Developers" version, normally going for about $5,000.
If you aren't in the loop, MSDN stands for Microsoft Developer Network, and when you subscribe, you get most of their products, depending on the level of your subscription. Under the old system, you could get Universal, which got you almost everything, and Enterprise, which still got you nearly everything. For the Enterprise version, it only costs a few hundred dollars more than the old Visual Studio by itself, so it made sense for people to just buy the whole subscription, and as a result get the various versions of Windows, server products, Office, etc.
Under the new system, with the new Visual Studio, you can still get about the same thing for the same price, but you don't get the newer testing tools and such with the "Team Edition." That subscription costs $5k. The thing is, those are all tools that I have a lot of use for, and not having them would annoy me. So this little "in" that they're doing saves me the money in the long run.
So despite my freak-out yesterday, all is well. I just have to wait a few days to get my subscriber number and I can then download the products. I can't wait to get my hands on the final bits.
No comments yet.