10 free Microsoft products for IT and home users

Microsoft doesn't earn billions of dollars every month by giving away its software. But even Microsoft is no stranger to offering freebies in a bid to increase customer loyalty.


There was CEO Steve Ballmer handing out new Windows Phone 7 devices to every developer at the recent Professional Developers Conference at Microsoft headquarters – and all 89,000 Microsoft employees will get their own free Windows phone. (See also Microsoft Windows after 25 years: A visual history)

But you don't have to trek all the way to Redmond or work for Microsoft to take advantage of free technologies from one of the world's largest software companies. Let's take a look at some of the free Microsoft products that might appeal to IT pros, business users and consumers alike.

Security Essentials

Microsoft's free anti-malware product for Windows PCs was first released in September 2009, and Microsoft recently altered the licensing agreement to let small businesses run Security Essentials on up to 10 computers. Microsoft also offers EMET (Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit), a free download that can harden legacy applications and generally make it more difficult for attackers to exploit software vulnerabilities.

Network Access Protection

This "free, basic NAC for Windows-only shops" is included with Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008. "Features are relatively primitive," according to Network World tester Joel Snyder, who says "Microsoft NAP will work best in an all-Microsoft operating system environment where all devices are joined to a Windows domain."

Windows Phone 7 development tools

To prepare for the WP7 smartphone launch, Microsoft released free versions of development tools Visual Studio 2010, Silverlight 4 and Expression Blend 4 to help developers build apps for the new mobile devices. While the phones themselves are definitely not free, there are numerous examples of Microsoft offering free development tools. The main .Net Framework and related Silverlight platform are free, and Microsoft offers a free "Express" version of Visual Studio.

Office Web Apps

Microsoft's free online versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote launched this year when the company started offering Office Web Apps, a cloud-based consumer service. The free version of Office Web Apps is not intended for business use, but could be enticing to home users. However, some of the early reviews of Microsoft's cloud-based Office tools indicate that Google Apps is still superior.

Hyper-V

Microsoft's answer to VMware, the Hyper-V server virtualization platform is available for free, and also within new versions of Windows Server. Although most customers use Hyper-V to virtualize Windows, Microsoft has submitted source code to the Linux kernel to let Linux run on Microsoft’s hypervisor.

Windows Live Essentials

Designed to boost Windows PCs with several free programs, Windows Live Essentials includes a photo gallery, movie maker, instant messaging, e-mail and social networking. Also included is Live Writer for bloggers, and Live Mesh for syncing photos and documents between personal computers and the Microsoft SkyDrive cloud service.

Windows Azure Platform Introductory Special

Windows Azure itself is not free, but Microsoft is offering free access in a special offer that expires on March 31, 2011. The offer includes 25 hours of a small compute instance each month along with 500MB of storage and 10,000 storage transactions.

SQL Server 2008 R2 Express

Microsoft makes plenty of cash by selling SQL Server, but does offer this free version for "developing and deploying desktop, web, and small server applications." While not as fully-featured as paid versions, the free download offers 10GB of database storage, the same core database engine used in other versions of SQL Server, and is compatible with SQL Server 2008 and the SQL Azure Database cloud service. Separately, Microsoft offers SQL Server Compact, a free database for building mobile, desktop and Web applications.

Search Server 2010 Express

Microsoft unveiled a free search server in 2007, and has continued updating its free search capabilities, now available with Search Server 2010 Express. The software requires Windows Server 2008. Think of it as Google (errr… Bing) for your business systems.

BizSpark

BizSpark is not a single product. Instead, Microsoft says it is a free three-year program designed to help software start-ups grow by offering them access to "development tools, platform technologies and production licenses of server products (including Windows Azure Platform)." To qualify, start-ups have to be fewer than 3 years old and have less than $1 million in revenue. By nurturing the next generation of tech start-ups before they're profitable, Microsoft is really hoping to create future waves of paying customers.

Leftovers

Not everything that's "free" is really free. Internet Explorer is free, of course, but only officially works on Windows PCs, and IE9 only works on Windows 7 and Vista. Microsoft also boasts of the free System Center Virtual Machine Manager Self-Service Portal, but the system requirements show that customers must first acquire Windows Server, Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 Administrator Console and SQL Server 2008.

However, Microsoft does offer a 180-day trial for System Center VMM and similar trials for numerous other products.

Microsoft also offers free training programs to those who have paid for its software, including a set of free end-user training tools released this year for Microsoft Office and Windows 7.

Microsoft also offers some free tools for migrating users to Windows 7, such as the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit and the User State Migration Tool. (See also: 11 tools for Windows 7 migrations)

Those Windows 7 licenses will cost you $200 to $300 apiece, however.

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original article via Network World:http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/111710-microsoft-free-products.html?hpg1=bn

Life of Certifications?

You have spent tremendous time and effort to earn a certification only to have re-certify a few years down the road. Some might gnash their teeth in protest over this and assume it is only a ploy by the various certification entities to part more money from our pockets and others just think it ridiculous, yet I believe there is validity in this concept of having to recertify or earn continuing education credits. Ours is a field that changes constantly. New technologies are released or new versions of current technologies. There are always new updates and service packs that are released. In other words, the IT field is always changing and we have to keep up with these changes or we risk falling behind the technology power curve.

There are some certification programs that require you to either earn Continuing Education credit (taking classes, attending conferences, teaching classes, etc) or to recertify or take a test in the next higher sequence of certification tests (Cisco). There are also some certification organizations that do not require recertification at all - CompTIA being one of them (though they do strongly encourage you to recertify on the newer technologies). Once you are certified - say on Security+, you are certified for life (or as is found on their web site "CompTIA certifications are valid for the rest of a professional's career"). This is nice - you take a test and you are certified for life - no fuss and no worries. But let's say you are A+ certified and that you were certified in 2000 - yes, you are A+ certified and for life - but the technology that you originally were tested on is now 8 years old and has changed significantly. Microsoft also had a similar approach. If you are an MCSE on NT4 - you kept that certification, even though there aren't many NT4 networks left (they have changed this approach with the MCTS and MCITP).

The argument that is put forward for continuing education credits or recertification is that there is concern about the relevancy of the certification with regard to current technology. Three years ,in many cases, is enough time for a technology to have matured enough that you might need a "refresher". I like the idea of continuing education credits - if you resit the class, teach a class that covers the material or even jus t attend a conference or seminar - that should suffice.

Windows XP and its future!

Microsoft has been notorious for killing off old, perfectly good OS's for new and improved versions. WHY? Is it because they are a money hungry or is it that Bill Gates does not want to lose his piece of the pie. My opinion of why Bill Gates and Steve Baumer continue to put Microsofts' hand in everything is they are not only Tech guys but first and foremost Business men. They know, as with any business, if you become complacent and do not continue develop new products, marketing plans, retain customer base(not that is an issue w/MS) ,to evolve with the demands and the technology you will get ran over.

MS has developed a Timeline for XP in order for them to remain profitable all while pushing corporations and users(both with hesitation & resentment) towards Vista.

June 30, 2008
PC manufacturers stop selling computers with XP installed.

Jan. 31, 2009
Microsoft stops selling XP altogether.

April 14, 2009
Mainstream support (free live support and warranty support) ends. Free maintenance is limited to security fixes.

April 8, 2014
All support for XP ends.

I have heard some mixed reviews about Windows XP and its future in talking with some of the people I help out. These people happen to know what is going on because the majority of them are coming to me for consultative help to either transition back into the IT field or how they can make themselves valuable again because they have been displaced. The reason they are in the predicament they are in now is because they became to comfortable in their job role and did not think it necessary to update and develop their skill sets based on the current technology. Many have said that from a business stand point that it will be awhile before Vista is deployed in most corporate environments; hopefully the release of the Server 2008 and SP1 will help alleviate some concern. On the consumer side it has been pretty negative conversations overall due to the fact that the majority of consumers can not fork out money for new technology like Corporations can. Another note is that the people who do enjoy the features of Vista and would like to use it at home, their current hardware will not support it. I prefer XP Pro to Vista, for now, but the 2007 Office Suite is by far superior to the 2003 version.