

How Microsoft BizSpark Is Doing With Startups, and How It Can Do Better - gthuang
http://www.xconomy.com/seattle/2009/05/11/how-microsoft-bizspark-is-doing-with-startups-and-how-it-can-do-better/

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iamelgringo
I've been working on a web app for the past year, and, I am a BizSpark member.
Getting in to the program was a bit of a pain because a couple of their
partners never got back to me.

My Dev box is Windows 7 + Python/Django courtesy of BizSpark. I use a WAPP
stack (Windows, Apache, Python, PostGres) for production. And, for office
stuff, I get to use Office 2007 Ultimate which is really very shiny. The MS
office suite is really nice software.

Even if you're a primary Mac user, why not get the BizSpark membership and run
whatever Microsoft OS you want on Parallels, just for Microsoft Office? It
costs a hundred bucks after 3 years. What do you have to lose?

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sachinag
I button holed (read: stood up and asked a question of) Dan'l Lewis, the big
muckety-muck at Microsoft in charge of the program, about BizSpark. The
question was: "we're a LAMP shop, what do we get out of BizSpark?" His answer:
"we can help you move to Microsoft tools when you have scaling issues. That's
what we did for MySpace."

More fail: <http://www.sachinagarwal.com/microsoft-bizspark-is-a-joke>

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endtime
To be fair, what did you expect him to say? Your question might as well have
been, "We don't use your products and have no interest in doing so. What can
we get out of you offering your products for free?"

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sachinag
Wrong - I absolutely have an interest in using _any_ tool that would be
helpful to my business. I was asking for help to identify how best to use the
toolset that BizSpark provides.

My question can't possibly be the first time he's heard that; I was astonished
that he didn't have a pat answer that was productive. When we have scaling
issues, we'll have all the traction and revenue we'd need. BizSpark doesn't
help us at that point.

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Julienco
there are 12 000 startups in BizSpark. most of them are doing web facing
software apps. do you think they are all wrong ?

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trezor
Lots of market-speak, but it _does_ show that Microsoft is changing from the
rigid, closed organization it used to be.

