I bought this board because I am building a DAQ system based off some of the components on this board. I also wanted to build up some familiarity with the Xilinx EDK/SDK tool flow. The kit came with a Xilinx ISE s/w license for embedded development. However, I learned it was only for the software side (SDK) not the EDK which is needed for changing the microcontroller configuration. So with the included s/w you can only change the application code for the microcontroller. Using the regular webpack ISE you can write code for the FPGA in VHDL or Verilog, but you can’t instantiate a Microblaze core. The EDK is an additional $500 option if you want to work with the microcontroller configuration. What’s a bit frustrating is the design/tutorial files on the AVNET site have several EDK tutorial examples. They’ve now included a (EDK required) warning behind those tutorials that require the purchase of additionals s/w. The SDK license is also locked to that particular board so you can’t use it on your own designs.