Is DreamSpark Somebody's Nightmare?
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News Commentary: Beware of |
The original phrase--associated with the Greek assault on Troy using the Trojan horse--aptly describes Microsoft's free developer tool student program, DreamSpark. The program is unequivocally a Trojan horse for Microsoft software development.
But it's more. Microsoft's freebee developer tool bag decidedly skews towards Web development. DreamSpark is very much about squashing the dreams of Web 2.0 platform developers, many of whom use free, open-source or other non-Microsoft tools.
A quick recap is necessary for context: Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates officially announced the DreamSpark program today, during a speech at Stanford University. Microsoft plans to make the following available, absolutely free, to students: Visual Studio 2005 and 2008 Professional editions; XNA Game Studio 2.0; XNA Creator Club 12-month academic membership; Expression Studio; SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition; and Windows Server Standard Edition.
Microsoft says the program is immediately available to 35 million college students in 10 countries with eventual high school expansion reaching as many as 1 billion students. That's a whole lot of students with access to valuable development and server software, absolutely for free.
But the products aren't really free. They represent Microsoft's research and development and an investment in a new generation of developers, by allowing them to become accustomed to using company's tools, rather than the competition's tools.
Microsoft is looking to get a whole lot back from its program. DreamSpark isn't charity. It's business--protecting Microsoft's entrenched desktop-and-server software business model from competing products, and, most importantly, from the Web 2.0 platform.
Microsoft software surely can be found everywhere on U.S. college campuses, where volume-licensing agreements make Office and Windows cheaply available. But alternative products have strong footholds, too. Academia is one place where open-source software has surprising traction and synergy. The paper "Open Source and Academia," by researchers Brendan Riley and Laurie Taylor, explains why the open-source and academic models are surprisingly complimentary.
While software development is one place non-Microsoft software usage can be found on college campuses, there is another: Laptops. The ratio of Mac-to-Windows PC laptops is far greater on most college campuses than anywhere else. A quick walk through of most any student center or library will confirm the Mac's campus popularity.
Competitively, Microsoft is concerned about the Web 2.0 platform, which has been pulling software development interest away from Windows. Either Microsoft gets the developers while they're young or open source and other competitors will. Most open-source tools are free. How does Microsoft compete with free? By being free, of course.
What Microsoft gives away for free directionally reveals how DreamSpark is a Trojan horse against the Web 2.0 platform. Expression Studio is a collection of tools for content creation, mainly for digital distribution. Students could easily develop Web projects with SQL Server and Windows Server for which they might otherwise use LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP). Visual Studio is the huge desktop carrot, since Microsoft will give students the full Professional rather than the Express editions.
And there's more. I also see broader competitive objectives. Microsoft isn't just seeking to win over students, also pulling them away from free or open-source alternatives. Microsoft has embarked on what it calls the software plus services strategy. Microsoft's approach is philosophically juxtaposition to Web 2.0 platform developers that push services plus software. By pushing its own tools and accompanying development philosophies, Microsoft competitively would like to influence the next generation's development culture. Microsoft wants to keep software development primarily rooted on the desktop, but extending to Web. The Web 2.0 platform approach would reach from the cloud right down to the desktop.
Microsoft isn't the only major software company with free-development-tools-for-academia programs. IBM and Sun are among the Microsoft competitors offering free tools. Google has several programs encouraging students to use open-source development tools. What sets Microsoft apart: Breadth and depth, developmental area of focus and two desktop monopolies (productivity suites and operating systems). The latter difference gives Microsoft potentially huge pull leveraged off Office and Windows.
The giveaway, while seemingly charitable, may see backlash if Microsoft's Finnish fiasco is any indication. During a January meeting, Gates presented Finnish Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen with free Windows Live@edu services. But the gift sparked anti-competitive criticism in Finland, which inflamed because of Microsoft ties to the Finnish Ministry of Employment and the Economy.
Gates really offered Vanhanen the same services as everybody else: The Windows Live@edu program is already free. But some gifts are suspiciously received. Should DreamSpark be one of them? Absolutely. There's a Greek geek army inside that Trojan horse. But in this story, who the heck is Helen of Troy?
Comments (8)
Interesting article but you failed to mention the competitor who this is truly aimed at: Adobe. The inclusion of Expression Studio clearly aims this at AIR. Visual Studio is included only to make the target less obvious.
I don't see this program having much impact though. Student users of Visual Studio can already get the product for a minimum cost; designers won't give up their Macs for a softie product.
It will be interesting to see the reaction of the anti-trust crowds in the US / Europe and their take on Adobe being Netscaped.
Microsoft must really be concerned with AIR. Perhaps WPF in the browser is just as slow as it is everywhere else.
Posted by Phil | February 19, 2008 4:20 PM
Hi Joe,
I don't see this as how you mention. I for one believe that the Development Tools for a platform should be available for free so that we could work on it. Until yesterday, the only option left to Students was MSDN AA (MSDN Academic Alliance) which had an Annual Fee (which is way too affordable!) and you will find most of the Universities in the world subscribed to it. But now with this DreamSpark, we can slowly eliminate that MSDN AA and Students can feel free to just login and download. Just think this way, what if Eclipse was not free? :D
Posted by Chaks | February 19, 2008 4:34 PM
Sounds like Microsoft is taking a page from the book of the tobacco industry. If you get them hooked while they are young you'll have a customer for life. There is only one flaw with their plan as I see it. If you teach a student that development software should be freely available, when they graduate and go into the real world the first place (it seems to me) they would look is to the Open Source Community for more freely available tools. Today's young developers are not afraid to learn new systems, it seems more likely they would welcome the change..... Bad Lucky Billy.
Posted by trixtur | February 20, 2008 11:53 AM
Is it me, or does the reaction of many people give the impression that Microsoft can do no right?
They charge for the software, and they are pricing those without MSDNAA out of the software.
They give it away free and they are "squashing the dreams of Web 2.0 platform developers". Seeing as both free for NON-commercial use (Even with DreamSpark, commercial use needs a 'proper' license) I don't see how this is the case
Posted by Stephen Tordoff | February 20, 2008 4:23 PM
Trying to attract more readers in the OSS/anti-microsoft demographic, eh? Sad, as is CNET Blogs' recent turn for the worst in the same way (in fact, see http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13505_1-9874171-16.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5 ).
Posted by techSage | February 20, 2008 9:37 PM
I don't think that one can say that the entirety of Microsoft is aligned one way or the other. I will admit though, this does seem to be a strategic move on Microsoft's part to capture a potential market of developers early but who can blame them? This is a natural evolutionary move for a business in their position. The goal of business is to secure a theoretical and constantly growing net profit by tailoring to the market as it evolves itself.
That being said, I would still promote decentralization of computing systems' applications versus an "amalgamation" towards one central platform (read "I support open-source software and the FSF").
I don't think it matters what Microsoft does here, the evolution of networking applications and software in general will continue unscathed, in my opinion.
Posted by Crystalysis | February 21, 2008 4:06 PM
It's funny how you're all open source developers with a bias exceeding your talent for blind criticism. It doesn't really matter what Microsoft gives away to students as the universities will continue to use the products needed by the course that is being taught. All it gives students is an the option to try software they would otherwise not have access to, not to mention AA-MSDN already provides Visual Studio.
Posted by Your lord and master | June 10, 2008 6:38 PM
It's funny to read open-source fanaticism painted up like a presidential campaign. Put the right spin on things, and you can turn anyone into an angel or a devil.
Hypocrisy leaves a bitter taste in my mouth and this article is some nasty stuff. I try hard not to be too biased one way or another and will gladly use a tool needed at the moment regardless of who makes it. However, it's kinda funny to see fanatics preach that open-source offers choice and that Microsoft's primary guilt is their attempts to squash choice.
Now, here Microsoft is giving students...well, choice. They aren't eliminating open-source software from schools. They're adding their own products as a choice. The real truth of kids coming out of college is this: If they go to work at a shop using Microsoft tools, that company will pay for them. I never had to bring my own copy of Visual Studio to work or pitch in for a new SQL Server. Furthermore, they will be familiar with the tools since they had exposure to them. If that student goes to a more open-source focused shop, they'll have had exposure to those tools as well. This is not a bad thing. I started out in a LAMP-shop (P for Perl) and a couple years later, moved on to a more Microsoft-focused shop (the .NET rage was starting). Good thing for multiple points of exposure. It's somewhat the nature of the industry that workers will move around and have to adapt to different environments and platforms. If I have to switch again and use Linux as my work PC...well, good thing I still dual-boot at home.
So, anyway, it's funny seeing fanatics preaching freedom of choice as long as they decide what the choice is (and here, it's obviously LAMP). Microsoft has a guilty past in trying to limit choices but open-source evangelists shouldn't follow suit.
Posted by Imcfarlin | August 12, 2008 12:28 PM