Does anyone know of a way (or has anyone been able) to get a copy of Platform Builder from Microsoft free or cheep with the understanding that you will not sell any products built with it. This would be for a hobbyist, or a guy with little discretionary funds and a few great ideas.
Platform Builder for the hobbyist?
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Platform Builder for the hobbyist?
dan59
Sorry, but unless your "little discretionary funds " are above $1000 you can not. PB is clearly not a hobbyist class product.
Roxanne163
JCDS
CMValdivia
It's not the right place to start a flaming discussions on marketing decisions (which I won’t even pretend are always clear to me) so I'll close that as off topic which it clearly is.
You have your answer though: for better or worse you can’t get PB for free. There are several free or low cost offerings from Microsoft like Express products but PB is not one of them.
mdschwarz
"PB is clearly not a hobbyist class product."
Huh Give me a break. Software is software is software. Sometimes hobbyists turn pro. In the 120 days I used Platform Builder, I built 3 custom platforms that required a lot more than point and click. I started a project that could very well become a commercial project, I as well as many others cannot afford the $5000 for PB for a speculative project. Also, I do software development on Windows Mobile for my day job.
Why can't Microsoft offer a license that does not allow for commercial distribution and does not contain any tech support for these kinds of people Its not like one more unit of Platform Builder costs Microsoft more than the cost of the media. Hobbyists could always move over to a Linux solution or Symbian and just say screw Microsoft...
I could just create a new Passport account, pay $6.95 again and get another trial license key and do that every 4 months. That's kinda silly. If Microsoft doesn't want to foster skunk works development for their platform by offering development tools for free for hobbyist use, they are just going to loose. evc4++ is free so there's precedent.