I've been consulting for a few years and always used the company's licenses for work purposes.
Now I'm on my own and need legit licenses for VS.NET and SQL Server.
Basically I'm finding I either have got MSDN ($1,200) or Empower ($375/year for 2 years). Technet is eval only and Action Pack doesn't have VS.NET.
Does anyone have any other suggestions? I think I'm going to go with the Empower for a couple years and then hopefully one of my side projects will have taken off so I won't have to sweat the $$$ :)
PS: and for those "VIM FTW" or whatever, please don't bother, I dual boot like the rest of you, but Uncle Bill pays the bills really well while I work on other stuff.
Uncle Bill only pays the bills if you're a paid-up member of the fan club. This is a cost that you've been externalising. So, now would be a good time to re-evaluate open source alternatives. You can decrease your costs and increase your margins. You can also migrate legacy applications and data to more contemporary systems. This brings considerable value to clients.