Cancelling TechNet is a Bad Move, Microsoft.

It’s no secret that I’m a Microsoft guy, owing much of my current career to their products which have been the staple of my computing experience since I was 5 years old. In that time I’ve gone from a simple user, to a power user who tweaked his system for the ultimate gaming experience to the administrator I am today, one who has seen almost everything Microsoft has to offer. I won’t lie, much of that foundational experience was built on the backs of pirated software but once I had a proper job that gave me access to all the software I needed I found myself not often needing much more than they provided. That was until I became a contractor which necessitated some external learning on my part.

Enter TechNet subscriptions.

They’re essentially a golden ticket to Microsoft’s entire software library. Back when I first bought into them there was only one level which got you everything but Visual Studio (that privilege is reserved for MSDN subscribers) and came with a handful of licenses for every Windows version out there, and I do mean every version as you could get MS-DOS 1.0 should you be so inclined. I, like most TechNet subscribers at the time, got it because the cost was roughly equivalent to the Windows desktop licensing cost to cover all my home machines at the time and the added server OSes and business software were an added bonus that’d help me professionally. I didn’t end up renewing it, mostly because I then got a MSDN account through work, but I know several people who are still subscribers today, usually for the same reasons I was.

It was with mixed feelings then that I read today’s announcement that Microsoft was going to stop selling the program effective August 31st, 2013. If you’re so inclined you can buy yourself a subscription (or renew your current one) all the way up to this date so you can continue to use the service for another year after that, putting the end date of the service at late 2014. After that your only option to get a similar level of access to Microsoft’s catalogue will be to go through MSDN which at current pricing levels is out of reach for infrastructure professionals like myself. Whilst the price difference is justified by a lot of the extra features you get (like the super cheap Azure pricing) those benefits aren’t exactly aligned with the current TechNet crowd.

The suggested replacement for TechNet is now the Evaluation Center which provides access to time limited versions of the same software (although how comprehensive the library is in comparison isn’t something I can comment on). Ironically there’s still a text blurb pointing you to buy a TechNet subscription should you want to “enjoy software for longer” something which I’m sure won’t remain there for long. In all honesty the reason why TechNet was so useful was the lack of time and feature limitations, allowing you to work freely with the product without having to consider some arbitrary limitation. For people like me who like to evaluate different bits of software at different times this was great as I could have an environment set up with all the basics and just install that application on top of it. Time limited software doesn’t provide this functionality, making evaluation done at the individual professional level essentially pointless.

The rationale is that people are looking more towards free services for evaluation and deployment. Now no one but Microsoft has the stats to back that argument up so we’ll just have to take their word for it but I get the feeling this is more about them trying to realign their professional network more than anything else. Sure I’m in the camp that admins will need to skill themselves up on dev related things (PowerShell and C# would not go astray) but semi-forcing them onto MSDN to do so isn’t the right way to go about it. Sure they’ve committed to expanding the services offered through the evaluation center but I doubt the best feature of TechNet, the no time and feature limitations, will ever come to it. Perhaps if they were to do a TechNet cloud edition, one where all the software had to be run on Azure, I might sing a different tune but I doubt that’ll ever happen.

As much as I praise Microsoft here I can’t help but feel this is a bad move on their part as it will only help to alienate a dedicated part of their user base that serves as the front line advocates for their products. I may not be a subscriber anymore, nor will I likely be one in the near future thanks to the benefits granted by my job, but I know many people who find a lot of value in the service, people who are de facto product evangelists because of it. I can only hope that they revamp the MSDN subscriptions to provide a similar level of service as otherwise there’s really only one place people will turn to and I know Microsoft doesn’t approve of it.