MVPs get a certain access to MS products to enable them to do the testing necessary to help other people with their problems, so one of the problems people face when they are no longer renewed as MVPs (which happens to us all sooner or later) is the sudden withdrawal of that access.

For those who have access to Volume Licensing agreements or even MSDN and TechNet Plus via their companies this isn't a major problem, but some MVPs are students and at the other end of the age scale some are retired so those people face the question of what to do next. (Some, in fact quite many, are trainers and consultants and they presumably can make their own MSDN or TechNet agreements and claim them back off tax).

MSDN costs too much for a student's or retired person's budget and TechNet (which was cheaper) while it used to be useful as a source of information didn't use to include more than a few pieces of time-bombed evaluation software.

Nowadays TechNet Plus *does* include software which they describe as "the full version of all that software is available for evaluation purposes - the software is not time bombed". So - while I don't know how the amount of software available compares to the full range of software offered by a MSDN contract - that is certainly one option at a not-that-expensive $499.

But this message is to advise you that there's a cheaper alternative which in this day and age is equally valuable and yet costs less - or $349. That's the TechNet Plus Direct version which covers the same things as the "full" TechNet Plus but doesn't supply you with DVDs through the post - instead you just have to download the software from their site.

As in effect the only reason I bother with the MSDN DVDs at the moment is that they come anyway and therefore for some things that aren't urgent, I might as well wait for the DVD rather than doing the download to get the .iso file, this "Direct" subscription seems like a great deal and something that I'll be seriously considering when my MVP days are over.