Just read this on a news group,Xilinx are pushing their SpartanIII fpga very hard at the moment,but supplies are perhaps a little hard to find until production ramps up,so Altera have come up with this:-

"
If Spartan 3 delivery issues are still a problem for you, Altera can help.
Any customer with a pending Spartan 3 order can get a quick delivery of 5 free Cyclone samples, 5 free serial config parts, and free Quartus II web edition software. Please refer to following url for details: http://www.altera.com/products/...mples.html. Reminds me of one of the over 2700 Cyclone customers to date asking:
Can I get more Cyclone parts?
Yes.
Really.
Yes.
Dave Greenfield
Altera Corp
"
Now I know that matketing is a pretty cut throat business but thats that plain nasty.