Microsoft has been making a lot of publicity lately, what with their recent acquisition of Danger (the folks that brought you the Sidekick), and their new attempt at taking over Yahoo!, but there are two moves that are of particular interest to college and university students. I'll lay them out and talk about them in detail...
Microsoft releases a Microsoft Facebook SDK
Microsoft has just entered into a partnership with Facebook in terms of building Facebook up as a platform. In doing this, Microsoft has released a Facebook SDK which will allow the use of any .NET language to be utilized on Facebook as a Facebook App! The goal of this of this partnership is beneficial to both parties. From a CNN article1...
"We want to make Facebook into something of an operating system so you can run full applications," Zuckerberg told me, saying it would be analogous to the platform that Microsoft Windows provides for developers. Outsiders can now develop Internet services on Facebook's infrastructure...This is likely to result in an explosion of creativity
So how does this relate to college and university students? Well, it's estimated that up to 90% of students have a Facebook account2! Ninety percent! On top of that, the average user on Facebook spends 19 minutes on the site. So, if you do the math, that means a whoooole lot of students perusing Facebook every day...and counting. With 24 million registered users now, the site grows 300% each year. That's 150 000 new members every day! So, if Microsoft can get any piece of this pie, it'll be significant. This partnership is a win-win for both sides. Microsoft gets more young developers using and building applications with their tools, on one of the largest and most popular social networks on the Internet (not to mention the millions of people who'll use these applications too). And Facebook gets to re-iterate its dominance as an online (social) platform.
Microsoft Facebook SDK
Microsoft DreamSpark
Microsoft just recently announced a new program called Microsoft DreamSpark, the purpose of which is to put development, design, and platform tools in the hands of students across the world...for FREE! How is this different from MSDNAA? It's not. Rather, it's a compliment to the service. Offered worldwide, students verifiable in Canada, United States, the United Kingdom, China, Germany, France, Finland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Belgium all have access to the program and hence the software!
Students are able to download professional-level Microsoft products, such as...
This is a fantastic move that Microsoft is making, as both a statement and an investment. I've always been a huge proponent for getting development and productivity tools in the hands of students, for free or as cheap as possible. I think that there is a great deal of value in investing in the pioneers of tomorrows technology, today! The makeup of a student is changing and what was once a go-to-class, do-work, go-home student has transformed into the student-by-day, entrepreneur-by-night student. These are the people that will decide what technologies will live and die tomorrow and to give them the tools to access, manipulate, and mold your technologies is nothing but a good move. I really applaud Microsoft for pushing through with such an initiative and I hope that other companies follow suit!
Microsoft DreamSpark
1http://money.cnn.com/2007/05/24/technology/fastforward_facebook.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2007052417
2http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.educause.edu%2Fir%2Flibrary%2Fpdf%2FELI7025.pdf&ei=N8bQR_OWFIn8pgTwnoTuBA&usg=AFQjCNHN_pOmyQ6e8nexKtUVi_yNY5utyA&sig2=fYNrtMrjbIKsmz8EIgzjnA
