The details of Microsoft’s Spark Your Imagination project—previously announced last November as the Spark initiative—were fully revealed at the Embedded Systems Conference today.
The community-focused program brings Windows Embedded CE 6.0 R2 and Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition to hobby and academic developers for $250 to $350.
The full versions of these software packages—which are for non-commercial use only—will be made available, along with select boards from participating hardware vendors.
Microsoft also announced that Board Support Package certification will now be offered free of charge for both commercial and non-commercial use.