Simon Seagrave at TechHead comments on the demise of Technet:
Microsoft have announced that subscriptions to their long running MS TechNet subscription will end on the 31st August this year (2013). This is going to be significant blow to many SysAdmins and IT Professionals, such as myself, who use the Microsoft TechNet subscription service for ease of download, evaluation/trial, learning and running of the various Microsoft OS and back-office products daily in their home lab and proof of concept environments.
Read more at: End of the road for the Microsoft TechNet Subscription