MSDN, Expression Studio 4 Premium, & SketchFlow

Question

Through work I have an Visual Studio Premium with MSDN subscription that I love. However, my biggest disappointment of the last 12 months was discovering that our 2nd from the top level subscription was not enough to get me Sketchflow!

This is, most decidedly, NOT SHINY, and I am borderline distraught! What are my options? Upgrading to an Ultimate subscription for Sketchflow is out of the question. Am I forced, then, to stay with Blend 3 or Purchase Blend 4 seperately?

If this is not a question I should ask here please inform and I'll delete. I just tend to default to SO for all questions that Google can't answer and Google did not answer this one.

Answer 1

You can upgrade for about $350...which is way cheaper than MSDN

http://www.microsoft.com/expression/products/Upgrade.aspx

Answer 2

Related to SQLMenace's response -- You can only upgrade for $350 if you previously purchased Blend 3 at retail. If you spent thousands on MSDN Premium and got used to using Sketchflow with Blend 3, you don't have that option.

To the OP... You've been bait-and-switched. Your options are to purchase the full Expression Ultimate 4 ($600 USD at retail) or upgrade your MSDN license to Ultimate (for thousands more). Or stick with Blend 3 and not get the v4 features for working with the latest versions of Silverlight and WPF.

None of those options are great. I'm hoping the people in MSFT DevDiv who'd like to see Sketchflow get adopted have more clout than the marketing genius who thought this tiered approach would drive retail sales and/or MSDN Ultimate upgrades.

Answer 3

The Expression team, according to Tim Heuer's blog, may offer an upgrade for $250 to the Premium subscribers.

Answer 4

The upgrade is being offered to Visual Studio 2010 with MSDN Premium subscribers for $249.95. There are similar deals being put into place for MSDN partners and for companies who purchased Visual Studio Premium through volume licensing.

Answer 5

I looked I could get sketchflow with my WebSpark Account, but I only get the Web-Edition of Blend :-/

Answer 6

We think too that is a very bad move from Microsoft. we hope that Microsoft will listen to customers and change this.

Answer 7

So do we wait for Microsoft to bow under the pressure of common sense or fork out the cash? Does anyone here have the power to speak to a product head at MS?

Answer 8

If your Expression Studio 3 is a retail version (i.e. not from MSDN subscription) you can upgrade to version 4 for absolutely nothing - read the How To Upgrade text on this page. It's not blindingly obvious that you can upgrade for free given the upgrade option available for a fairly large fee. But there you go, it can be free. By the way, I've done it, so I know it works.