Jim,

It's an annual subscription. You get all the developer tools, Back Office, etc. You don't get printed docs, but the retail versions are pretty light in that respect anyway. You also get most MS betas, at least the later ones.

I think the Back Office products are limited to 10 user licenses, but if you're looking for software for development and testing that's usually enough.

>Hi all,
>
>Just got this MS sales pitch in the mail regarding MSDN Universal Subscription. Trouble is, I haven't a clue, from reading the brochure, just HOQ it works!
>
>1) Is this an annual price, or an "initiation fee" with substantially lower rate once enrolled?
>
>2) Is this even an annual thing, or does the price mean for a 'lifetime' subscription?
>
>3) It suggests that I get almost the whole MS universe by subscribing, but then I read ". . . you get *access* to the latest products and information, including a complete set of MS operating systems and BackOffice Server components, MS Office Developers Edition. . .".
>- does this mean I get the full standard retail packages of each, or does oit mean that I can I can go shoewhere and 'review' them, or what does it mean????
>
>Its pricey in Canada, but might be the way to go, depending on what the answers to the above turn out to be. Can anyone elaborate, or is it just standard practise today to go ahead and "buy a pig in a poke"?
>
>Thanks in advance,
>
>Jim N