The eagerly awaited Microsoft Action Pack Web Solutions Toolkit turned up yesterday. Included in the kit are various pamphlets and three DVDs - Visual Studio 2008 Standard, Expression Studio and a "Custom Web Development Jumpstart" DVD, which is basically full of documents and presentations about all the latest Microsoft technologies, such as ASP.NET AJAX and Silverlight. There's one licence each for VS 2008 and Expression Studio, which I'm looking forward to having a play with. There's also a big round Silverlight sticker in the pack. Hmm, where's that gonna go – on the office window, the laptop, my forehead?

If you're running a small software development business using Microsoft technologies then it makes sense to subscribe to the Microsoft Action Pack. For a flat annual fee you get access to all the latest software, such as Office 2007, Vista Business and SQL Server 2005, for internal business use, development and testing. To qualify, you just need to sign up as a partner and pass an online course in your area of expertise. If you mainly do web development then you'll also get this toolkit.