[stevear]

Also worthy to note that Microsoft's BizSpark program provides free production access to Microsoft tools and products-- not Express editions but versions like Visual Studio Ultimate, SQL Server Enterprise, Windows Server Enterprise, etc. You also get a couple thousand free hours on Azure if you want to go that route. For training you also get three months of Pluralsight which brings you up to speed on the relevant tools and platforms.

I feel it's a really good time to be a Microsoft developer. The products are really solid, the skills are in demand and the barrier to entry is pretty much gone.

I realize after writing the above I come off as a big time evangelist, but this is only because I have had such a good experience for the last decade building on their platforms. Never regretted going all in other than sometime feeling like a black sheep on this site. Good to know there are a lot of other .Net folk on this site. ;)

[vyrotek]

Yep. Our startup has been in the program for a little under 3 years now. It is great!

Edit - May I ask why the downvote? Would you like more information on my experience or something? I only attempted to validate that this is a real program with real companies going through it.

[fooooobar]

Your product-name dropping skills are unparalleled.

[gfodor]

Wait until the bill comes.

[lancefisher]

After three years, you get to keep some production licenses as well as all the software you downloaded for free. You get four Windows Servers and two SQL Servers. This really is a great program. You can read more here: https://www.microsoft.com/bizspark/About/Graduation.aspx

[jongalloway2]

Yeah, there's a common misconception that there's a big bill coming at the end. There isn't - you get to keep the software you used during the 3 years for no charge and you get discounts if you need to buy more.

[gfodor]

Uh, there is a big bill coming at the end. You need to keep your system running, even though you now have to pay for licenses, don't you?

When building your system during BizSpark, you are unlikely to make architectural choices with respect to software licenses, because they are free. Then you graduate, and you're probably looking at a system that uses way more licenses than it would have if you had to optimize around that parameter from the get go.

BizSpark is an excellent move by Microsoft, and likely is helpful for folks starting out who already know the .NET stack. But I'm very skeptical that working in the Microsoft stack offers such a technical advantage that it is worth the risk that your business is not going to be in a position to suddenly have its operational costs bloated by software licenses by some arbitrary date determined by Microsoft.

[jongalloway2]

Yes and no. The point is that you're not retroactively billed for licenses you got while in the program. Believe it or not, a lot of people seem to think that it's just a delayed payment program. Yes, if you're designing a system that's going to require more than 6 servers you might end up paying for a license. Windows Web Server runs ~$470. But for many businesses, if you're using >6 servers you're likely going to be deploying to some cloud hosting solution, or possibly using a shared hosting service (which would include licenses).

It's a tired example, but StackOverflow really is an example of a startup that got a lot done with very few devs or servers and launched a very successful business. Also key is that you can mix and match technologies as you want, something that the StackOverflow used very intelligently (e.g. Microsoft server fronted by non-Microsoft reverse proxy, etc.).

[rbanffy]

> if you're designing a system that's going to require more than 6 servers you might end up paying for a license

Even if you don't have to pay for the first licenses, you'll pay for subsequent upgrades. And designing for the Microsoft makes it harder to migrate to anything else - that's probably why Microsoft invented BizSpark in the first place.

Stackoverflow shows you can get a very significant audience on a half-Microsoft stack, but they have a lot of interesting (as in "different from the ones I have") server management problems because of that. That makes their podcasts much more worth listening.

[meow]

Not to mention, most startups either fail in 3 years or (hopefully) be in a position to pay for the extra servers.

[bmj]

Another consideration is that if you do succeed, you can partner with MS, which provides some cost savings with MSDN licenses. At my last start-up, we authored several white papers about our solution and how it meshed with MS's toolset, and we received significant discounts with licensing.

[noveltyaccount]

The most expensive part of a software project is the people, not the licenses. People who pay for MS believe that they're saving money in the long run.

[gfodor]

The increased engineering burden of having to consider software license costs when designing systems hardly seems worth it. Imagine if you had to pay a per-node fee for your Hadoop cluster? How much extra effort would be put into optimizing the individual performance of each node and job if there were an additional 50% per-node cost to run it?

[noveltyaccount]

But you already go through the exercise; you compare the cost of adding a server versus the cost of engineering a solution. The only difference is server cost is different. My time's worth $200/hr, what's yours?

[gfodor]

Hence the use of the phrase "extra effort." In a theoretical world where Microsoft offered "Microsoft Map Reduce" as a Microsoft-sanctioned way to run map reduce jobs, one could imagine the licensing cost for a single box could well exceed the cost of hardware, ops, etc, if SQL server license fees are any indication. How much extra engineering effort does this translate into? Is it worth it?

[untog]

The program lasts for three years. Something to consider, sure, but three years can be a long time in startup-land.