Microsoft, developer editions should be free.

Paschal L posted this snippet from the introduction speech by Paul Flessner (SVP) at Teched: "...A couple other things on SQL Server: Our developer edition used to sell at $499. We're lowering the price to $49, announcing basically today, and that will be embedded -- (applause) -- thank you -- that will be embedded and picked up, we think, by other tools vendors. Borland has already announced that they'll be picking it up and shipping it with their C# development environment...."

Microsoft, let me tell you: all your competitors offer their developer editions for FREE, even Oracle. MS announces a $49 pricetag for a developer database, and they get applause. What a weird world we live in...

3 Comments

  • I agree Frans, but at least it's much better than the original tag price, and it will certainly appeal some new database developers.

  • I didn't even know the original price tag was that huge :) (a MSDN subscription makes you lazy I guess ;) ). There are a lot of developers in the world who do not have a lot of money but do know how to code (and are now working with free tools to write their .NET code). If MS truely wants to win the 'war' against Open Source and free tools, they should act better. But ok, it's a start, that $49.- .. :)

  • I seem to recall that the shipping on that free Oracle copy is pretty pricey, though - wasn't it in the neighborhood of $35 for a full set of CDs?

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