Dear TechSoup member,
We're sharing important news regarding planned changes to the Microsoft program on TechSoup that may influence your organization's IT budgeting and planning. We have summarized the key updates below, but full details about the changes and resources that we will make available to support you are detailed in this blog post.
On-Premises Product Availability: With a few exceptions noted below, on-premises products will no longer be available to nonprofits as a donation beginning April 4, 2022. Much of the functionality of on-premises solutions is available through donated cloud offers, including downloadable desktop applications. On-premises software are stand-alone, perpetual licenses that users install on specific computers and can be used even without an internet connection (i.e. Office Standard). These products will still be available through TechSoup, but only at charitable discount prices.
Exceptions: Computer labs and public-access computers with shared devices will still be able to receive on-premises product donations. After April 4, 2022, all eligible nonprofits will only have access to Windows Pro as a donation. Windows Server and SQL Server will also be available to nonprofits who operate in countries where Azure is not currently available (Current Azure availability can be found here.)
Cloud Donations: Organizations will continue to be able to request Microsoft cloud products through TechSoup. These include several cloud donation offers that TechSoup recommends. These offers provide the same functionality of the on-premises tools, often with more robust, secure, and resilient features.
Well I guess that's one way to drive Office 365 adoption.
Quote from: NovemberWhiskey on October 04, 2021, 07:35:39 PMWell I guess that's one way to drive Office 365 adoption.
Honestly, if you're not rocking Google
Apps GSuite Workspace Whatever-Google-Calls-It-This-Week or Microsoft 365 already, this is probably not driving too many non-profits to 365 just because you can't buy the non-profit standalone Office 2019 or whatever.
Cuz you know people will be using that until 20321. Its a bold strategy, Cotton.
(EDIT: My company does a LOT of Non-Profit 365 implementations. And only a couple of those NPOs are using TechSoup as their CSP these days, so this might not even be on their radar. Sure wasn't on ours, AFAIK)
I never considered how the move to the cloud would eventually affect orgs like Tech soup, but
this makes sense.
The average user these days has zero need for locally installed software, especially MS products.
This goes double for CAP, where nothing should be local-only, because local-only either
dies on the vine when a member leaves, or gets passed around via email, ensuring whatever
version you have is always out of date.
"But whah about cher pri-vah-see?"
Yeah, because the DPRK is going to use the data from Flyover Composite's
banquet planning as the basis for their invasion plans...
Quote from: Eclipse on October 05, 2021, 12:15:01 PMYeah, because the DPRK is going to use the data from Flyover Composite's banquet planning as the basis for their invasion plans...
No, but they'll be sure to hit us when our guard is down, like on PT night.
Cuz you know that on ES night everybody is cocked, locked and ready to rock with 24-hour gear and a full-up Red Dawn-style E&E plan.
Come on man. You gotta get inside the Nork mindset.
^ See that's why you're a Colonel.
What y'all haven't addressed is, they've already hit us. They've been hitting us, for decades.
V/r
Spam