Microsoft offers its development, design tools to students for free

Information from LIFE of Florida:
LIFE of Florida homepage: http://lifeofflorida.blogspot.com/
Learning is for Everyone, Inc homepage & Forums: http://www.Learningis4everyone.org


Complete story in Computerworld:
http://www.computer world.com/ action/article. do?command= viewArticleBasic &articleId= 9063321
February 19, 2008 (Computerworld) Microsoft Corp. Monday unveiled a
new program that will offer as many as 1 billion high school and
college students free access to its development and design tools.

The DreamSpark program is now available to 35 million college students
in the U.S., China, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden,
Switzerland and the U.K., Microsoft said. The company then plans to
expand the offer to high school students worldwide in the coming
months. Once the full program is in place, the number of potential
users could approach 1 billion students, Microsoft said.

"I've always believed in getting developers at as young an age as
possible," Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said in a video interview on
Channel 8, a Microsoft site focused on student developers. "These are
the tools that people can build a career around or they can just build
fun software for themselves. The basics of understanding how good
architecture works, the data structures ... those have been the same
for the last 30 years. Fundamentally, the skills of design, of knowing
what good code looks like -- that is going to be valuable for at least
the next three decades."

DreamSpark is available to students whose studies include technology,
design, math science and engineering.