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Microsoft To Shut Down TechNet Subscription Service
otaku244 writes "Since 1998, Microsoft TechNet has been a mainstay for all system developers attached to the Microsoft platform, given the ease of access to almost every product the company has produced. Unfortunately, the days of a cheap, unlimited Microsoft development stack are coming to an end."
Visual Studio and other products have free versions now, so TechNet subscription is mostly outdated service. Visual Studio Express is the same great product that the full version of Visual Studio is, but is great for beginners. Visual Studio as a whole is a great product too. And, MSDN subscription is there too.
Combine that with subscription based Office and you have little reason to get TechNet.
This has got be the third dumbest idea Microsoft has had in the last decade (Windows 8.0 and the f*cking the start button in Windows 8.1 being the first two). Microsoft Technet was a relatively cheap way for people that made a career out of Microsoft products to get their products for a reasonable price.
This allowed for two very important things, first it allowed for the ecosystem to be license compliant which made it easier to stay in the habit of being license compliant while at work work. The second thing it did was allow workers exposure to products to gain access for skills development. Workers that have exposure to products tends to push for the products that they are familiar with at work.
It's all about the ecosystem, and TechNet was absolutely brilliant for supporting the ecosystem of workers that support their products in the work place. Sure, you can follow their suggestion to switch over to the much more expensive MSDN subscription, but for most workers that is simply too expensive for a personal salary. Microsoft is shooting themselves in the foot for exploitation of the very people the very workers that make their success possible to begin with in the first place.
I for one am a TechNet Subscriber and I am very disappointed at the loss of this wonderful tool. I missed the boat on a Free TechNet in 2000 when I earned my first MCSE ( They changed the policy a couple of months before). Now it will be gone. Really 30-180 trials do not fit the need in how the product was intended and how it is being used. I keep a full non-production environment in a test lab at home. Exchange, Web, SQL etc. When new products come out that is where the go first. Reloading 180 days is not an option. Neither is footing the cost for all of those products and MSDN costs too much as well.
Technet was very reasonably priced at a couple hundred bucks a year and that got you access to almost everything Microsoft makes. Of course, you couldn't use it for production, but for testing, etc it was great. As a sysadmin, I don't want to pay 5-10x as much for an MSDN subscription because I just want the software, I could care less about the development stuff.
So at the end of the day, what Microsoft will see is less money from me when I turn to other sources to get the MS software I need for testing purposes. I know guys at other companies with MSDN universal subscriptions and they're happy to share their login info.
For an annual subscription fee of a few hundred dollars, subscribers get the right to download virtually all of the desktop and server software Microsoft sells, with multiple product keys. The software is licensed for evaluation purposes only, but that restriction is part of the license agreement and not enforced in the software itself.
Could it be they're trying to cut pirating / abuse as a business entity to raise license sales? Nah, it's a conspiracy to spite the users.. ya that's it.
Hey Bob! I've got a great idea! You know how we've been looking for a way to alienate our professional costumers even more?
Yeah Bill! That Metro UI was awesome! Completely un-manageable in an Enterprise network, of no use to existing software, and a gaping security hole all in one!
Well Bob you'll love this! You know that really useful service we provide to admins and IT departments that lets them have access to our vast library of software for testing and evaluation? You know, so they don't have to cough up millions of dollars in duplicate licenses for the their test environment? Let's can it!
That's brilliant Bill! I knew it was a great idea to put you in charge of the xbox one project!
Microsoft hasn't been hating on their partners enough lately, too much on their customers.
Thanks for remembering us, Microsoft!
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
I guess you get to either pay-up, or go cold-turkey and join the Libreoffice club.
Oh look, MS is shooting themselves in the foot again.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
"Developers! Developers! Developers!" I guess that with their obsession of trying to be everything Apple, they've decided to abandon everything that made Microsoft successful. Is the management team just panicking and throwing crap at the wall to see what sticks?
TechNet subscriptions don't include Visual Studio anyways. So your comparison to the highest priced MSDN tier is pretty disingenuous. If you need dev tools you would have always needed to buy at least the MSDN Visual Studio Professional which is $1200.
> Unfortunately, the days of a cheap, unlimited Microsoft development stack are coming to an end.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Rod Trent over at http://windowsitpro.com/windows/dead-microsoft-technet speculates on the TechNet shutdown that "...in a Cloud world, this makes a lot of sense. Those wanting to test new software can simply spin-up a Microsoft Azure-hosted VM, completely configured for the application they want to try-out or through the use of TechNet Virtual Labs. These days, using Microsoft Azure, a testing lab can be setup and running in minutes with just a mouse click."
Plausible, but risky if/when devs don't like it.
I deny that I have not avoided attaining the opposite of that which I do not want.
(Or, What can a clueless Microsoft management fuck up this week?)
Microsoft wants to cut down on piracy of its development tools.
All Java developement tools are free.
SharpDevelop is free.
Any questions?
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
...with the OS or the language platform anymore. Not enough long term profit in it. They want to be a sort of Cloud/HP/Apple. They want to be a smartphone/tablet and internet based business services vendor and that's it. There's apparently just not enough profit in the OS or supporting application developers.
Why don't they just admit it so we can all move on? Linux awaits.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
online cloud-based virtual lab environment for $999 per user per year that gives access most of the same software, but all running on microsoft's "cloud".
They seem to have forgotten: "Developers developers developers... developers developers developers... developers developers developers..."
Your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Oh well, so much for that theory.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Visual Basic 5.0 Professional was the best product Microsoft ever made.
Farewell, my old friend.
You are partly right and partly wrong.
People did tend to stretch the technet subscription. Certainly on for my part it ended up being rigged all the way at home, in VMs with a scratch infrastructure used for work and for fun. Microsoft and pretty much everyone else has twigged that whats happened is a slippage where I think I am not alone. Companies do not give me a test farm. As a tech, I think MS fund this out. My company found this out. I was either going to end up worse at what I do - Or do this.
But, and here is the elephant in the room *But*, I started more than 20 years ago. I started before all the DRM and ever deeper licensing and chasing down every dollar. I started before MS thought is was smart to have 9 versions. I have seen what the loss leader of allowing home use for free actually translated into computers on the office floor as people triggered the wave that meant windows at home - windows at work.
So, that was the tide coming in. I guess the tide always has to shift. So, the home user got targetted as 'pirate' - so between being made the enemy and crapping over them with worse versions and less features, less features, and less features, and them finding the competition (Hi iOS, Android, *nix, OSX) Microsoft have been on the path of eradicating the crack investment first pack free loss leader. You can add in shipping Win8hate - which only tiny minorites even accept, and demand every corner of the ecosystem use (er no..) and then just to cap it off - why not withdraw Technet. Having blown away the loss leader that brought in the kids, Joe Sixpack and the wife, now its time to chew on some tech and admin bones. You can only chew on your roots up to a point, then the plant dies.
Slashdot should actually be happy. MS used to be a company that seemed to wholly understand how to build marketshare, to build the monopoly. iOS and OSX upgrades cost what? £20 or less? Android is free(ish). *Unix has lots of choices. The dev stacks for these exist and are largely in place.
When the OS has rotted, there becomes a growing crisis where the reason for the windows ecosystem rots as well. If you don't run Windows, you don't need sharepoint. You won't need Exchange. You'll be able to change DBs.
Azure? What would anyone need Azure for?
I'm watching the world slowly walk away, and the Board is like Nero fiddling while Rome burns. Oh, I know. They have other cities they are building. But Rome is Rome. And when Rome fell, that was the end.
We`re all equal
Now you'll have to put that test client on the cloud and get it through Azure so you can do your testing. I'm sure with Azure you can deploy almost any Windows OS you want.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
MSDN is the developer stack. More stuff, but costs more too
-- 73 de KG2V For the Children - RKBA! "You are what you do when it counts" - the Masso
Change the subscription policy so that you have to check in every 24 hours to maintain your subscription. You can only access it from a friends house if your home PC is still on. Hey, it worked for the Xbox One, didn't it?
TechNet was never about developers it basically was full MS software (Servers/Business) with a non-production license (no trial limit). You used it for integration/upgrade testing or trying out new software. All for a few hundred bucks a year.
I liked the way TechNet felt like a group of people united around the purpose of pushing MSFT's software beyond its stated limits. I think they improved a lot as a result of the feedback they got.
Futurist Traditionalism
It's actually all due to the perceived threat of piracy. Rather sad actually. I'm sure it was misused more often then not, but I think it will hurt more than help in the long wrong. My employer wants to can my MSDN subscription due to moving to open source...was going to try to talk them into a technet subscription so we have access to test the latest versions of windows, exchange, office, etc. but now it looks like that won't be an option. Keep in mind that I've had a personal technet account for a while. It went from 10 cd keys to 5 cd keys to 3...i knew it would be gone soon. Still sad though :(
As an MCT, I get the TechNet subscription as part of my annual fees. Probably the most valuable benifit of the MCT program. Since I'm not really doing much with MSFT training these days, having much more fun with Linux and Open Source stuff, I've been debating weather or not to keep my MSFT certifications going. I stopped doing all the Novell certification crap back in the '90s as they became less and less relevant. I'm thinking this is just more MSFT not being able to figure out how to play in today's environment. I guess I'm done with Microsoft now.
Nope. No-one in Linux-land is going to invest in the substantial capital to ensure such tools are running similarly to Azure. On the other hand, all the equivalent tools for Linux are free, so there's no barrier in terms of cost for Linux at least.
Or you go find your eyepatch and go raiding with the merry pirate brigade!
Even better, it used to be free for a lifetime if you had your MCSE. Unfortunately, I passed my exams about three weeks after they quit that practice. Now get off my lawn!
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Although I'm surprised to hear this since my subscription expired in May and they have called me almost every day since then and sent multiple mailings and whatnot trying to get me to renew. I let them know in multiple "surveys" their tactics were not appreciated nor their treatment of paying customers and let their 'live' support reps know it too.
I only used it to get multiple activation keys for Windows 7 cheaper than I could find anywhere else which is exactly what they don't want you to do but they treat their customers like shit and keep pulling keys off that you were entitled to. I also used it to set up a Windows 8 pro test machine here at work so I knew to dodge that bullet in advance.
Still, this was supposed to be one of their methods for evangelizing the gospel of Microsoft. I remember in the 90's reading here on /. about how the only way anything would be able to have a chance against them would be because they killed themselves. Seems to be coming true.
..I don't know that I would recommend Javascript myself. It's finally cracked the top 10 at Tiobe and it's definitely growing. However, it's still not exactly mainstream. It's also inherently limited to a narrow development niche. The GP could choose to dive into some sort of mix of C, C++, ObjectiveC, Perl, and/or Python instead. S/he would probably have more success out of the gate because all of those languages have a broad applicability to a much larger set of use cases.
However, I think the larger point you're trying to make is a valid one. The rate of change isn't slowing down for anyone. These days nobody in IT can afford to be a one trick pony. In order to stay relevant in the market, developers need to have more than a passing familiarity in several languages and environments. At minimum they should be competent in at least a couple and reviewing one or two others. (What? You thought you were done studying when you got out of college?)
Microsoft never learnt that the reason that Windows had such a large userbase and got so popular was because of piracy. The only reason it spread throughout the world the way it did, was because people could pirate the OS. That cemented a customer base in some businesses, and in the home.
What the developers and consultants can play around with at home they are more likely to recommend and use in the office environments. The office is not going to purchase additional licenses for their consultants to mess with at home. A consultant is not going to go through the expense of purchasing MS licenses for a home deployment when there are alternatives to the cost and expense. When enough consultants feel that way suddenly customers are not going to be pitched a Microsoft solution anymore.
Oh, and the people that just subscribed to a Technet subscription for software will still get the software, only this time MS might get absolutely nothing from that userbase, not even a Technet subscription.
How did they gauge what the impact of this decision would be? Did they talk to their developers and consultants before ending a decades old program that so many had come to depend on?
Microsoft is shooting itself in the foot, again, by trying to force their user base into spending more money instead of adding value. They need to recognise that there is a lot more competition out there, and people aren't starry eyed about Microsoft anymore.
Their move with the Xbox One to lock out the Rest of the World, their missteps with Windows 8 (and from what I am hearing 8.1 as well) are indicative of a company who's leadership is out of touch with its customer base. They are still riding on the successes of Bill Gates and floundering badly in the new era. What is the last great thing that came out of Microsoft?
And now, they are cutting off the people that promote and support their products in the hope of making some more money (from whom?).
-Gel214th
After Prism, companies outside of USA are very reluctant to house corporate data in US company cloud.