Certified or Gold Certified Partners in the U.S. are now able to access a promotion from Microsoft and buy Visual Studio Team Systems 2008 at a consistent discount. The Redmond company is offering the solution at no less than 65% off. The discount is calculated from the Estimated Retail Price of the solution, the software giant has informed. Eric Ligman, global partner experience lead, Microsoft Worldwide Partner Group, announced the promotion at the end of the past week.

Ligman informed that Microsoft partners could buy “either the Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Editions (which includes both the Development and Database Edition in a 2 for 1 deal as well as an MSDN Premium Subscription) or the Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Suite (which includes the full suite of tools in addition to an MSDN Premium Subscription) to all Certified or Gold Certified Partners.”

Microsoft Partners will need to hurry in order to take advantage of the promotion. The discounts will be discontinued on June 26th, 2009, Microsoft has revealed. It even makes sense to buy Visual Studio 2008 even though the Redmond company released Visual Studio 2010 Beta the past week. In fact, the promotion looks ahead and offers partners the chance to also save money when the RTM edition of Visual Studio 2010 ships.

“Not only are you saving up to 65% off the Estimated Retail Price of these products, this promotion is for the Open Value offering on these products, which means that you also get three years of upgrade protection included. So, when Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 becomes available, guess what? Yep, you get it included in this deal! In fact, because Open Value includes a full three years of Upgrade Protection (and all eligible Software Assurance benefits),” Ligman added.

Visual Studio 2010 Beta 1 is available for download here.