is this real ? MS giving free Vista and Office for viewing webcasts ??

J

JustFYI ...

http://vsd.powertogether.com/Campaign.aspx

"Tell us a little about yourself so that we can help you find the most
relevant Windows Vista development resources and also so that we know where
to send your free, fully-licensed copy of Windows Vista Business"

"The Power Together Campaign consists of two (2) offers, the Windows Vista
Business Offer and the Microsoft Office Professional 2007 Offer, and is open
only to legal residents of the 50 United States (includes District of
Columbia) 18 years of age or older. You are not eligible to receive these
offers if you or your employer is a participant in the Microsoft Partner
Program or the Microsoft Developer Network. To be eligible to receive
Windows Vista Business, you must register at www.powertogether.com and
participate in at least three (3) qualifying web casts and/or virtual lab
sessions within 30 days of registration. To be eligible to receive Microsoft
Office Professional 2007, you must register at www.powertogether.com and
participate in at least three (3) qualifying web casts and/or virtual lab
sessions within 30 days of registration. In order to register at
www.powertogether.com, you may be asked to provide personal information
including name, telephone, and address. All personal information gathered
during registration will be subject to Microsoft's privacy policy. Limit one
gift per person per Offer. These offers are non-transferable. These offers
expire on February 28, 2007, or while supplies last, and are not redeemable
for cash. Taxes, if any, are the sole responsibility of the recipient. If
you are eligible for and register to receive both gifts, you must complete a
W-9 (Request for Taxpayer Identification Number and Certification) form
prior to receipt of the second gift. Any gift returned as non-deliverable
will not be re-sent. Please allow 6 - 8 weeks for shipment of your gift(s).
Government Customers: Microsoft intends that use of the services and
products offered as part of this promotion comply with applicable federal,
state, provincial, and local government gift and ethics rules. If you are a
government employee (including an employee of a public education
institution), these services and products may be used for evaluation
purposes only, solely for the benefit of your agency or institution, and not
for the personal use or benefit of any individual. You should consult with
your agency or institution counsel or ethics officer prior to use of these
services or products. You may return the products to Microsoft at its
expense. "


© 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
This site hosted for Microsoft by Ascentium

is this for real ?
 
R

Richard Urban

Well, it is not a Microsoft web site. Do you trust these people, or are they
just "fishing" for the information you have to input to join these web
casts. There is absolutely nothing that describes who the are on their web
page.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
L

Larry Maturo

If you are reading this newsgroup, chances are you aren't
qualified do get the free copy:

You are not eligible to receive these offers if you or your employer
is a participant in the Microsoft Partner Program or the Microsoft
Developer Network.

-- Larry Maturo
 
R

Richard Urban

Sponsored by Microsoft? There is no mention of this on their web sites that
I could find.

What type of information do you have to supply to these people to get your
"free" copies of Vista or Office.

Sorry, I am a firm believer in you get what you pay for.

It sure seems like a come on to me.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
R

Robert Moir

JustFYI said:
and is open only to legal residents of the 50 United States
(includes District of Columbia) 18 years of age or older.

Nice to see Microsoft continue to discriminate against the majority of its
customers yet again. Mind you, if you're in the CPP and live in the US you
can get 'your' free copy at last perhaps, which is nice.
 
T

Tom Porterfield

Richard said:
Sponsored by Microsoft? There is no mention of this on their web sites
that I could find.

What type of information do you have to supply to these people to get your
"free" copies of Vista or Office.

Sorry, I am a firm believer in you get what you pay for.

It sure seems like a come on to me.

Let's look at some of the evidence. From the details of the offer:

"All personal information gathered during registration will be subject to
Microsoft's privacy policy."

"Microsoft intends that use of the services and products offered as part of
this promotion comply with applicable federal, state, provincial, and local
government gift and ethics rules."

And the copyright info at the bottom of several of the pages:

"© 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This site hosted for
Microsoft by Ascentium."

But anybody could say that, right?

Additional info. Doing a whois lookup on powertogether.com shows the
following list of nameservers:

Name Server ns1.msft.net
ns5.msft.net
ns2.msft.net
ns3.msft.net
ns4.msft.net

And who do you think owns msft.net? Here is the info on that:

Whois info for, msft.net:
Registrant:
Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052
US

Domain name: MSFT.NET

Administrative Contact:
Administrator, Domain (e-mail address removed)
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052
US
+1.4258828080
Technical Contact:
Hostmaster, MSN (e-mail address removed)
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052
US
+1.4258828080

So a little sluething shows that indeed Microsoft is involved with this
advertising campaign. They have done things like this in the past.
 
C

Colin Barnhorst

It is the address for the fullfillment company that is servicing the
campaign. It's real and it is not the first such campaign Microsoft has
run. It is not trial software but if I remember right it is NFR (perfectly
reasonable).

I have received items from Microsoft just for attending webcasts, such as
Visual Studio. Pretty easy to do. This will probably be their biggest such
campaign, though.

Two of the three webcasts on the Security tab are actually pretty
interesting looking. So are the webcasts on LINQ and Workflow Foundation.
And you get to ask questions during live webcasts.

Be sure to register early for the Thursday and Friday webcasts because the
seating for the live webcasts is necessarily limited (a few hundred). You
shouldn't have much problem viewing the others because they are already
archived. If you can't get into a live one you want just pick it up when it
is archived a day or so later. You just have to view three different ones.
Notice that one of the Friday webcasts is a Part 2, so be sure to view the
archived Part 1 ahead (the bottom selection on the framework tab).
 
J

JustFYI ...

I am living in Germany and am/was in the public CPP of Vista, but still
active in the Closed Beta of Longhorn Server and various other stuff, so no
chance for me for a free Vista so far, maybe something else.

But I highly doubt they will give free Servers away when this hits rtm next
year .. as the prices for server-os are multiple that of any vista edition.

anyway , I found this info and wanted to share, so whomever I now have
helped to get a free vista - enjoy it.
 
C

Colin Barnhorst

If you are in a Partner Program or subscribe to MSDN you are getting free
copies anyway. I grant you that the MSDN ones for Vista aren't licensed for
personal or productivity use, but even MSDN subscribers can use one MSDN
Office 2007 license for personal use (one desktop and one mobile).
 
J

JIm

I'm in CPP, & I just signed up for both...

Larry Maturo said:
If you are reading this newsgroup, chances are you aren't
qualified do get the free copy:

You are not eligible to receive these offers if you or your employer
is a participant in the Microsoft Partner Program or the Microsoft
Developer Network.

-- Larry Maturo
 
J

Jupiter Jones [MVP]

I am not sure why you say that.
There are probably a great many here who are not a MS Partner or a MSDN
subscriber.

Participating in the CPP is neither.

But I would be curious of any statistics you may have.
 
D

Daze N. Knights

I'm neither, and have almost completed viewing 3 webcasts for a copy of
MS Office 2007 Professional.
 
X

xfile

Hi,

I understand others have done some investigations (thanks for that), but I'm
a bit of skeptical for why MS won't do it within its web sites.

But maybe it's another way for the company giving an offer to those were in
CPP (and not) and made contributions. (see, I do have "positive" thinking
about the company)

In any case, except for being cautious, wish everyone gets what you want and
enjoy it.
 
C

Colin Barnhorst

Microsoft always uses a fulfillment company to run its promotions. There
are running drawings on TechNet for participants in the live webcasts. I
once won a portable media center and the notifications and shipping came
from just such a company as the one in this website.

It is always a fulfillment company that administers the sites and mails the
prizes. MS even uses a fulfillment company to administer the drawings for
free MS software for filing out surveys of various kinds.

The offer has nothing to do with CPP. I it an offer to the public to
promote Vista and Office 2007.
 
X

xfile

The offer has nothing to do with CPP. I it an offer to the public to
promote Vista and Office 2007.

Thanks for taking my nonsense for CPP seriously, which is a naive but
positive thinking for the company. It may not be true but it won't hurt to
think it is for making everyone happy :)

PS: I was trying to show some sense of humor but guess failed terribly :(
Microsoft always uses a fulfillment company to run its promotions.

Yes, I noticed that before as well. But with all the scams, I only trust
links redirected by its official newsletters and emails.

But thanks for sharing though.
 
B

Barry Watzman

Re: "If you are in a Partner Program or subscribe to MSDN you are
getting free copies anyway"

Partner members, as far as I know, won't automatically get a copy of
Vista unless they subscribe to the Action Pack ($300) or one of the
various MSDN paid subscriptions.
 

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