

Microsoft Launches Windows QuickStart Kit For Mac Developers - lanthe
http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/02/microsoft-quickstart-kit-for-mac-developers-25/

======
uptown
Great deal. For $25 + shipping you get a Windows 8 Professional license,
Parallels 8, and a USB stick. Just change the "disabled" attribute on the
order button, and you're all set.

~~~
mikeash
The "+ shipping" part amuses me. It seems to sum up the whole "out of touch"
reputation that Microsoft has, whether deserved or not. Why wouldn't this just
be a download?

~~~
paulvandermeijs
Ever tried downloading a USB stick?

~~~
mikeash
Yes, because they're totally charging $25 for a USB stick and throwing in
Windows and Parallels for free, and the whole thing would be pointless without
the USB stick.

~~~
glasshead969
25$ completely goes to charity. But they could have still done it as a
download though.

------
zampano
Well, that was disappointing. Spent about 20 minutes trying to get in on this,
only to find out it is sold out when the site finally loads. If they want
developers to give Windows 8 a spin, they'll need to put in a little more
effort to make this process less of a pain.

~~~
bmelton
Yeah, I've been periodically refreshing it all morning, only to finally
receive the 'sold out' message myself.

In all fairness, I don't have any immediate needs for Windows development, and
it's by no means a certainty that I would have actually built something
Windows-centric, so it's probably no great loss for either side.

------
2_ghosts
My checkout experience:

Enabled the button, clicked it, nothing happened. Looked in Firebug at the
Network console, saw a failure come back from the 'Pay' step.

Triple-checked my payment info, clicked the button once more. 25-30 seconds
later, I got two consecutive "Something went wrong" javascript alerts. A
minute or so later, I got two confirmation emails, lacking any useful details.
I'm guessing I was charged twice.

Once it is possible to log into the site, I will see what my order status
says. Right now /login continues to time-out.

~~~
jefflinwood
Just did something similar, saw that I was getting an SSL Error in Safari from
their JSONP Callback on <https://swish.com/swish-backend/...>, opened that
link in another Safari window and it appeared to go through.

I have one pending charge on my credit card, not sure if anything else will go
through, but I did end up getting an order confirmation.

Maybe whatever they're using to route SSL traffic through is falling over?

~~~
Bradosaur
Mostly what failed was outbound bandwidth. Users weren't getting the JSON
response from the payment page, though sometimes the payments went through.
Confirmation emails were very reliable, though, (thanks Amazon SES!).

------
xradionut
The cynical developer inside me thought, "Windows 8 has so little traction
among Windows developers, Redmond is trying to attract Apple developers out of
desperation."

~~~
jpxxx
Ya, but look at it from a pragmatic business perspective, and this is
Microsoft doing exactly what they should to court the prodigal developer: set
up a zero hassle Windows environment on your favorite platform for cheap.

~~~
rbanffy
A US$25 sold-out USB stick is more friction than a download.

~~~
jpxxx
Haha, true. But it's a whole lot better than "Buy shitty VM product, then
source a retail/whitebox copy of Windows, then Install and Patch, Install and
Patch, and set up Dev tools for about $400."

~~~
rbanffy
Did it come with development tools?

~~~
jpxxx
Hrm, they label it as "iOS and UX to Windows porting labs". So in a sense.

------
geekbri
A more direct link to the page to get the kit

[https://swish.com/swish-frontend/views/buy-
devkit.html?p=dev...](https://swish.com/swish-frontend/views/buy-
devkit.html?p=devkit)

~~~
raeliu
Much thanks for the link. Although I also got a "something went wrong"
javascript pop up, I managed to submit the order successfully by re-enable the
submit button and resubmit it.

------
jefflinwood
I think this is an excellent idea for Microsoft, but this web site has
cratered under the load.

I'm assuming they're using Stripe from the little message on my JS console,
but I'm having some serious trouble getting it to accept my payment (in Safari
on Mac OS X, Chrome isn't connecting at all).

EDIT: I am getting "something went wrong :(" after clicking submit, two or
three times now.

------
geekbri
Looks like swish is a little bogged down at the moment. My connection attempts
are timing out :)

~~~
MichaelStubbs
Indeed, same here. It does seem like it would be a popular offer.

~~~
mitchty
Quite.

------
rajivtiru
This is what i got after forcing the jsonp callback: "Product sold out! Thanks
for shopping."

~~~
suyash
It said Sold Out for me as well 10 mins ago, but I retried again and it worked
:) #paystonotgiveuptoosoon

~~~
Bradosaur
We upped the number available by 10% after it sold out, but then it sold out
again in a few minutes. It's sold out for good now, I promise.

~~~
anonymoushn
Will these kits be sold anywhere else? It's a bit of a shame for those of us
that just got a bunch of timeouts before it was sold out completely.

~~~
Bradosaur
MS may do another run of these, but we don't know. The other tools on
modern.ie are genuinely useful too. We tested Swish using browserstack to
resolve a thorny IE8 problem.

------
Tomdarkness
Every time I submit the order I just get a javascript alert with "something
went wrong :(" No idea if the order went through or not...

Edit: Got an order confirmation via email. However, I really think when you
are dealing with payments you should implement a more detailed explanation
than a javascript alert of "something went wrong"

~~~
footpath
I got that too, but immediately after I received an email from swish that
stated my order is complete, and that I can check my orders at
<http://swish.com/login/> (obviously not working right now).

~~~
Tomdarkness
I've not used Swish before and like you said I can't access the login page
either. However, I never got any account details so do you know how you would
login?

Edit: Managed to get on the page and create an account after some f5
hammering. Turns out all you need to do is create an account with the same
email you used in the order and it will display the order status.

~~~
Bradosaur
We wanted to make checkout easy, but maybe went a little too far. I'll add
some more language to the confirmation email explaining what's going on.
Thanks for posting the solution.

------
ja27
Besides building Windows 8 apps, I think you can even build Windows Phone 8
apps with this. It looks like Parallels now has support for all the
virtualization / SLAT stuff that the WP8 emulator needs. (VMWare Fusion 5 has
this as well.)

<http://kb.parallels.com/en/115211>

------
powertower
SOLD OUT.

Just tried, submited payment info, got message back after a minute.

------
dmix
This sounds great.

Parallels + pirated windows 8 isn't too hard to set up, but for any billable
rate, $25 is a good deal.

------
niggler
bizspark (www.microsoft.com/bizspark, free for startups) has windows 8 as part
of the program (for free) which you can use in bootcamp.

~~~
jakejake
Wow, what does it mean that you must "graduate" the bizspark program to keep
the software?

------
andzt
Guys... stop clicking the link so I can get my order through.

k thx

------
dsuriano
Makes me wonder if Microsoft would ever consider releasing IE for Mac OS X
again. That would seem to be a good way to make sure Mac Developers target
IE...

~~~
lancefisher
That's good in theory, but in practice it would likely be another
browser/platform to test and debug.

~~~
yuhong
AFAIK the last version was based on Tasman not Trident.

------
jbrooksuk
Argh! I placed an order but due to the overload it said "something went wrong"
I thought I'd give it time to cool down and now they're sold out :(

Oh well.

------
TomAnthony
Sorry if I missed this - but what do you get on the USB stick that isn't the
same as downloading Parallels / Win 8 / IE10 combo they offer on the site?

~~~
Bradosaur
On MS's site, you can download VMs for use with an existing Virtualization
Platform like Parallels or Virtual Box. The VMs are guest operating systems
with limited trial time. MS's docs suggest you use your VM manager to roll
back when time runs out.

With the USB key promo, you get a full license for parallels and a full
license for Win8.

~~~
TomAnthony
Ah, ok. Thanks.

That makes it a pretty awesome deal. Shame they sold out!

------
adlpz
Does this mean you need to be a registered Apple Developer (with the ID and
all the jazz..)? I can't get to the site to check, it keeps timing out.

~~~
Bradosaur
Nope, you just have to solve a small easy "puzzle" to "prove" you're a
developer.

~~~
liljimmytables
joke's on them, i only know how to solve the puzzle using chrome

~~~
planetjones
I managed to solve this one using the F12 Developer Tools in IE. Good enough
tool for the job. Would use again.

------
rbanffy
Anyone wants to explain the motivation behind it?

Does Microsoft think the Mac developer community is somewhat relevant to their
future?

------
panzerboy
I managed to order, got the email but swish.com/login doesn't load.

Also, what are the credentials? Wasn't asked for any password ...

~~~
luiperd
You have to create a new account on that page with the email you used when you
bought the deal.

~~~
panzerboy
Thanks, managed to do it now.

------
Wonderdonkey
"Sorry, we are sold out of this item." Aw.

------
planetjones
:( USA Only...

~~~
nateleiby
It mentions international shipping on the billing page - is it still USA only?

~~~
planetjones
Can't see anywhere for the country to go:

Name, Address, Apt/Suite, City, State/Province/Region, Zip

EDIT: I solved the puzzle ok, but the form which comes up only has the fields
above

EDIT2: thanks - I think the problem is the website not loading properly due to
congestion so certain page elements weren't visible.

~~~
davweb
If you click the "International" option under Shipping a Country field
appears.

------
jeromegv
It worked for me, site was slow but I was still able to submit the order

------
Tortoise
It doesn't work at all for me. Been trying for 15 minutes. :-(

------
keesj
Sold out

~~~
thehermit
Seems to be working again. Just submitted and got a confirmation email.

------
dsl
The frustrating experience of trying to order this is why nobody wants to deal
with your platform... _sigh_

~~~
Bradosaur
To be fair, the headaches today were our (Swish's) fault, not Microsoft's. If
MS decides to run another set of these, we'll make sure we are better
prepared.

Unless you mean the disabled "I'm a developer" button -- that was intentional
and supposed to be fun.

~~~
iqster
Would you be willing to do a short post-mortem write up on the load challenges
your site faced? Since you are part of the HN crowd, I imagine you did all the
reasonable things and somethings still surprised you :)

~~~
Bradosaur
Yep, we plan to write a blog post all about it, and what we'll fix going
forward.

~~~
suyash
Please also do include in your blog post : 1. Which charities people donated
most money? (my guess khan academy)? 2. Who's genius idea was to use
'disabled' attribute on the buttons? 3. How much traffic surge you got from
TC, HN, Engadget?

------
hmottestad
This just hit engadget.

------
magomandrake
Well played MS.....

------
matdrewin
Sold out :(

