Microsoft Open Licensing for Charitable Orgs

Never heard of it ... what do you know about it??

 

I work for Insight, a worldwide reseller of computers and computer related products. In fact, I work with software licensing. What questions can I answer for you.

 

windows licensing is only available as an upgrade... not a full product.

also I am providing our part numbers and list prices..
for formal quotes call 800- INSIGHT and talk to either Jerry Heath ext 5057 or Inez Powell ext 6406. Tell them John at the licensing desk sent you and they will do all they can to get you non-profit pricing on any or all products . They specialize in working with churches. Both are practicing Christians and I am sure they will give the best pricing they can.

We have over 20 vendors they work with to get discounted pricing for churches. here is a list ( it is old so there may have been changes) of vendors who offer special pricing for non-profit orgs.
ACT!
Brother
Cisco
Corel
Computer Associates - GLP Program
Crystal Reports
Executive Software
Filemaker
Infocus/Proxima (projectors)
JASC
Macromedia
Microsoft - Charity Open
Mitsubishi Projectors
Network Associates - Education skus and pricing
Sharp - projectors
SonicWall
Sony - Cameras and Projectors
Watchguard


Office Professional
MS26906807 OFFICE PRO 2003 ENG CHR-6.0 61.99

Windows XP PRO
MS545322 CHARITY WINDOWS PRO XP UPG 6 65.99

Windows 2000 Pro (this would be the xp pro license and use of the 2000 disk. they are downgradeable?backward compliant)

Frontpage
MS39202304 FRONTPAGE 2003 ENG CHR-6.0 46.99

MapPoint 2004
MSB2100406 MAPPOINT 2004 ENG CHR-6.0 92.99

 

"J"

So, in order to take advantage of the charity licensing a church would either already have to have a 'legal' copy, or, would have to buy a discounted product first?

Does Insight also sell full products?

For most of us Office 97 will do fine. *IF* we could still get legal copies of it.

Why does a church need licensing in the first place? Especially when most of the software comes pre-loaded on new computers? What advantage is there? I am at a loss here.

 

commonly the oem versions cost much more than the charity versions of the same product. Oem however is less expensive than the full retail shrinkwrap. MS has this presupposition that when you get a pc, it will have an OS loaded on it.

As far as the full products yes we have all of MS product line.

You can run office 97 with open charity licensing for the current office product...

As far as why do you even need licensing... Because MS would like to be paid for the use of their intellectual property. Charity is deeply discounted and is really a great price as opposed to any other pricing programs MS offers.

 

J.

Thanks for answering my questions:

However,

What I wanted to be clear about was that because for most purposes even a charity is considered a 'for profit' business for Copyright and Licensing Purposes..

And, I wanted to make sure there were no 'gotchas' when using pre-loaded software in a 'business' setting.

Doesn't make sense that it would... But...

 

no gotchas
just that every user of most software products must have a legal license.

 

Yup... they are definately well below the normal list prices. Remember there are a number of companies that offer special pricing on their products for non-profit orgs. I reccomend that everyone take advantage of these offerings to meet their needs. And remember the industry is very competetive. Shop the bids. You could save a few dollars that way. I work in the industry and know just how hard we fight each other for the business.

 

Or you can buy a decent Office product for $69 retail

Check Office Depot or search online for Star Office 7, that is what I use, and it handles even Office docs very well, even old formats that new MOffice doesn't like.

I have no problem with Microsoft charging for their IP, it is after all how the Tech industry drives new technologies, but their monopolistic business practices and their presumtion that theirs is the only desktop, makes me wonder if churches should be using any software by Microsoft. I mean, if Baptists are going to boycott Disney...

 

I must agree with Hardsheller. I make a living dealing with numerous software vendors and their licensing programs. MS charity is the easiest and by far the most deeply discounted program out there. There is some software which seems to be less expensive, but often compatibility and training issues arise.
If you have the time or incentive to train your folks to use the staroffice product, then it can be a bargain. However, the industry standard is MS Office. So the majority of users and organizations will continue to use it and the competitors will continue to compare themselves to MS products.

 

I think you would find very little retraining necessary, the interface is very similar, the menus are layed out in the same way, and I have yet to find anything that MSOffice can do that StarOffice cannot,

StarOffice can also output pdf files, and can save files in microsoft formats, as well as several other generic formats like rtf, etc.

Sun's goal with their new Java Desktop, as well as StarOffice is to make the User Interface so close to Windows that there are only advantages to switching, not headaches around user adoption

I used Office for years, and switched to StarOffice with no training or manuals

 

Thanks, all. This is really good info.

I think we probably would be surprised how many IT companies have such programs. Here is Adobe's:

http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/philanthropy/software.html

However, if anyone needs to make just good PDFs for free, they can download GhostScript, GhostView, and Redmon. Setup is not for the beginner, but once it is set up, it is as easy as pressing CTL + P.

BTW, OpenOffice.org and StarOffice is, in fact, very easy to learn, and presents very little learning curve to users of MS Office.

Can you tell I have become quite a good through the years at nicely equipping a computer for free?