*sigh*
It’s really outdated to use the dollar sign in Microsoft’s name. People think it’s funny, but every admin I know rolls his or her eyes. It’s passe. Get over it.
We just finished our E3 with Microsoft, and we made out very well. You might think that Microsoft rakes you over the coals, but they only charge for LoB systems. Test environments are covered under MSDN, and despite having a test/dev environment that rivals production, we only pay for licensing on production. Microsoft is exceptionally good with their EA customers, and compared to the likes of Oracle and Red Hat, they’re the Mother Theresa or IT.
That's okay with me. I'm an outdated kinda guy.