Microsoft Gives Software to Nurture Future Coders

Tue Feb 19 19:00:15 GMT 2008

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*Microsoft Gives Software to Nurture Future Coders*
The DreamSpark program will provide programming tools to high school and 
college students worldwide.

PC World
Tuesday, February 19, 2008; 9:19 AM

Microsoft 
<http://financial.washingtonpost.com/custom/wpost/html-qcn.asp?dispnav=business&mwpage=qcn&symb=MSFT&nav=el> 
is giving away development and design software to university and high 
school students around the world through a program aimed at fostering 
technology innovation worldwide.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates is expected to unveil the DreamSpark 
program Tuesday at Stanford University on the first stop of a U.S. and 
Canadian college tour. The program is now available to more than 35 
million college students in Belgium, China, Finland, France, Germany, 
Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the U.K. and the U.S.

Software available to students through DreamSpark includes Microsoft's 
development environment, Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition, and 
its Web and graphic design toolset, the Expression Studio. Microsoft 
also is making available XNA Game Studio 2.0, SQL Server Developer 
Edition, Windows Server Standard Edition and other software and 
resources through the program.

In the next six months Microsoft expects to extend the program to 
college students in Australia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Japan, 
Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia and other countries. And in the third 
quarter, the software will be available to high school students as well, 
Microsoft said.

DreamSpark is part of a company-wide effort to work with local 
governments, communities and academic institutions worldwide to give 
potential technology workers a head start in the competitive job market 
to foster technology innovation and improve citizens' quality of life, 
especially in developing countries.

Microsoft also is trying to compete worldwide with open-source 
technologies such as Linux that are freely available to anyone and thus 
popular with student computer enthusiasts who may not be able to afford 
to purchase Microsoft products.

One major benefactor of DreamSpark is Aisec, an international exchange 
student program. Its 28,000 students will get software such as 
Microsoft's Office productivity suite, said Michelle Galant, vice 
president of communications.

Aisec, which has 1,100 offices in 100 countries, will also use the 
company's Exchange e-mail server, Gallant said. "It enables us to run 
offices and enables us to run our exchange program," she said.

More information about DreamSpark can be found on Microsoft'sMSDN 
developer site.