Microsoft has started a new site specifically aimed at reaching out to startups at
microsoftstartupzone.com (10 bucks to those who can guess what the site's called).
It links up all the various Microsoft resources spread across its many web presences together on one site, making it a one-stop-shop for startups who want to check out Microsoft technologies. To be honest though, I think if you're a startup, you've already decided what technologies you're using based on what people you have (unless you're starting a startup without any technical people at first).
Nevertheless, it's nicely designed, and quite helpful at pointing out resources, plus the blogs are interesting, those obviously a bit biased towards Microsoft technologies.
The partner program's quite in depth too - didn't know Microsoft poured
that much effort into developing partners. More importantly, if your startup enrols in their Registered Partner Program (which is free), you become eligible for the
Microsoft Action Pack for one year. The pack includes basically everything you need to run your startup, including 10 licences for Office 2007 (with everything), 1 for Dynamics CRM 3.0, 1 for Exchange 2003, 1 for SQL Server 2005, 10 for Expression Web (their Dreamweaver competitor), 10 for Vista Business and licences for many of their server products too. I assume you have to pay to renew the subscription after that (but if so, it'll probably be for a reduced rate anyway). This is great for startups who are just finding their feet and need some help.
Check it out, and keep it in the back of your mind so if you do decide to use Microsoft technologies, you know where to get the free stuff
UPDATE: Maybe it's not new after all, as Don Dodge (one of the Microsoft guys behind it)
blogged about it a year ago. I wonder why Telligent are saying it just launched this week in
this blog post. Maybe the site got updated with Community Server?