2. How did you choose what software to make free with DreamSpark?

How did you choose what software to make free with DreamSpark?

It’s a response to the students we work with every day. Students aren’t specifically developers or designers until they get jobs; they think of themselves as creative people, people who want to do all sorts of things. We asked those people “what do you feel we have that’s valuable to you?” And they talked about the types of jobs they want to go get. They said, “your developer tools, the designer tools because user experience has a lot to do with development today - and gaming we love and want to do”. These are the students we talk to now. We want to enable this core group to achieve more - on a range from in a developing country they can move the whole country towards a knowledge economy or in a developed nation they can create breakthroughs and get a head start on innovation.

While it’s not just for students pursuing a computer science degree, the software comprises developer tools rather than general student tools like OneNote. Doesn’t that mean you’ll reach the more technical students anyway? I feel quite strongly about making the designer tools available, not only for purist graphics artists but what’s exciting and interesting for students to put their hands on. That need for self expression; it’s on every dorm door, on every Facebook page. With the design aspect, the opportunity for self expression in the broader sense, DreamSpark gives them tools and skills that are very interesting. When you open up Expression and see what can do with Expressions; what you can do with XNA to create games...

Think about DTP. I can remember in college how few people could create business cards and brochures; the software was very technical, you were thinking in terms of picas. Today virtually anyone with a PC has templates. In the same way, there is a democratization of development. What happens on Facebook; what happens on MySpace; how I get the ring tones to change on my phone is much more of a technology skill than people know, yet it’s native and easy. That’s why Popfly and mashup tools become really popular and interesting. There are fantastic skills in technology and you have so many skills among students.

What we have today is the first step and there’s nothing limiting us from providing more and more software. We’re more concerned today about overwhelming people with the choices; there’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to do those other tools. We really make sure we are tuned to the organization rather than making the Microsoft agenda the only thing they are receiving. We want to get them what they need and what they want; we want to be smart about providing useful tools. Maybe in three months we’ll offer OneNote. Popfly is so much fun, so interesting - people have such a good time using it. Possibly our robotics platform could be a lot of fun.

So will you have a way to help students who have no experience in development to get started?

We have the online forums and we have 2,000 student partners around the world, evangelizing the technology. We have the communities that exist so there are a lot of places to find information. But we’re still going to have a customer service response; if somebody emails and says they can’t get started there will be somebody who can respond there within 24-36 hours.