MSDN Subscription Renewal

This question was recently brought up on the Win_Tech_OffTopic Yahoo Group, but never really answered, so I was hoping someone might enlighten the DotNetWeblogs. 

When buying MSDN Universal Subscriptions through 3rd party vendors, is there any difference in licensing (or anything else) that a consumer should know about?  I’ve got to renew my Universal License, and MS is offering a special renewal price of $1999 ( a $300 discount).  But if you check some of the 3rd party venders, they are selling (supposedly) the same thing for around $1100 (case in point www.vLane.com is selling it at $1139).  I am all for spending less to get the same, but are they really the same?  Anyone hard and cold facts on the diffeneces and want to share them with the .Net community?  Whatever happens, I’ll blog about it here, and keep everyone in the loop.

DonXML

[Listening to: Long Time Dyin' - Overkill ] 

4 Comments

  • It is usually even cheaper just to buy new MSDNs off of eBay. Same exact thing.

  • From my experience, it all depends on what or who you are purchasing for. If this is an individual purchase - it may make sense to shop around for MS software - but if this is for a company purchase - I would buy from a mainstream channel.





    About 8 months ago, my company needed to purchase some SQL Server licenses to stay compliant due to some growth we had experienced. The $20k per proc Enterprise Edition licenses from our "normal" vendor (actually $18k after volume agreements) was okay, until I found the same thing for $11k online.





    I wanted to do things above board - so I called my MS rep - we talked - he talked to the online vendor - (who assured us these were legit copies) We bought 8 - and I sent them to MS's piracy group for review. Now these were originally sent to me and I forwarded them - they were shrink wrapped, packages looked legit, hologram stickers - the works.





    6 of the 8 were fake. We returned them all - and MS started action against the online retailer. They are still in business - but the licenses now cost $18,500 on their site.





    Of course, if we had been audited after the fact, the liability would have been ours - and any money I saved on the purchase, would have been lost in fines etc. We were just lucky we could return them to the company and not lose any money.





    Don't know if I have answered your question - but for me - (for work purchases) I budget for the full price - and save money on volume discounts etc. from the big vendors.

  • I purchased MSDN Universal in late April from vlane and have no complaints.





    I received my DVDs directly from Microsoft. They were shipped 2 working days after my purchase, took 7 working days to get here in PA. My credit card wasn't debited until after MS shipped the disks. My MSDN card came about 2 days after the disks.





    I have the expected amount of licensing, concurrent connections, beta dowloads and activations as any individual subscriber would get.





    Phone support? Overall, very satisfactory.





    Since I was new at this type of purchase, I tried to call vlane at 11:30 am EDT and got moved around on rings, eventually getting voice mail.





    Two phone calls to MSDN subscriber help were more fruitful. The first was because I received an email from MS with my ID # but could not login to the download site. Seems it takes an extra 24 hours to get through their MSDN subscriber lists. The second was for some info on the $300 DVD rebate and what MS needed for proof of purchase. Both times I was recognized on their end as a normal subscriber. They also mentioned that vlane is considered a 'retailer' to them.





    Finally, proof of purchase was something I needed from vlane. Their email wasn't quite it. Nor was their order confirmation page. This time, I called around 3pm EDT and got immediately through. 5 minutes later an email containing a link to my order reciept was in my inbox.





    All told, for MSDN Universal (retail $2500) I paid $1135 retail less a $300 rebate. Oh, and (while supply lasts) any MSDN subsciber with a valid VS 2003 priduct ID gets a $400 pocket PC for free. Can't beat it!

  • I bought my MSDN from vLANE and had no issues, but there website has chnaged and I am not sure if they are still in business.

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