My fellow DE, Dani Diaz, has posted some useful information to help clarify the various *Spark programs Microsoft is offering for the Student, Startup, and Website Developer communities:

As I mentioned in the last MSDN Flash edition, we are in a Sparking mode lately. To clear some of the confusion, I want to share the following table I came across recently. I think it is a great way to show the difference between each initiative and which one might be right for you.

 

 

DreamSpark

BizSpark

WebsiteSpark

Audience

 Students Startup Product Companies (Not services companies doing works for hire)

Website developers and designers (Companies building websites)

Eligibility

 Student from one of the universities/college partners.

Building a software product which multiple customers will use.

Private (non-listed)

Less than three years old

Less than $1M in revenue (there are a small number of local variants of this limit)

 10 employees or less.  In the business of building websites.

Benefits

 Tools and server products for dev and Tests only

Tools and production licenses.

For Tools, the offer is very similar to MSDN Premium, for up to 25 developers (more on request)

Production licenses allow unlimited use of Windows, SQL, Systems Center and BizTalk servers to put the application into production

2 phone support  incidents per company

Discounted hosting services from hosting partners

Tools (Expression, VS Pro) and production licenses of SQL Web and Windows Server Web 2008. Up to 3 developers per company.

2 phone support  incidents per company

Discounted hosting services from hosting partners

Period

 As long as they are students. 3 years 3 years

Fee

 none $100 at exit $100 at exit

Clearing the ***Sparks : small & mighty