Important Microsoft Donation Changes – 1 April 2018

For 17 years, Tech Trust (formerly CTX) via the TT-Exchange service along with major names in the technology world have been helping charities keep up to date with the latest products via their discounted and donated licences. Microsoft have been one of their key vendors, offering a wide range of their business and enterprise-class products for a minor admin fee to maintain their service. This admin fee is a mere 4-5% of any fair market value. Tech Trust are also a gateway to Microsoft’s 365 cloud office services and this is the inevitable direction that should be considered for any forward-thinking charity.

We have no current information as to what the new pricing structure will be, but we are sure that for a substantial list of Microsoft titles, they will no longer be donated and will work off a discounted costing. This discount is estimated to be anywhere between 60% - 75% off either retail or FMV (Fair Market Value). It is unfortunate that there has been little notice on these changes and no consultation with the sector to gauge how this will affect some smaller charities, but as of 1 April this new structure will come into force via the tt-exchange website. You can read what Microsoft have to say about the changes here. I would advise to promptly look at your IT upgrading and spend plan for the next couple of years and purchase what you require now. Changes will be made to the limitations imposed on the number of donated titles and licences you can acquire, click here to find out more detail on this.

For example:

*TT-Exchange admin fee includes Software Assurance with all Microsoft titles, allowing you to upgrade to the latest version within the following 2 years of purchase.
Costs shown here are exclusive of vat and are shown here purely for illustrative purposes, these are not indicative of actual prices that will be implemented by either Microsoft or Tech Trust.
Edu (Educational / Academic reduced rates)

Since Tech Trust began, charities in Northern Ireland have saved a massive £6.18m on software via the donation programme, £5.69m of that has been from Microsoft products alone. Microsoft has donated over a $1bn each year in cash and services to non-profit organisations worldwide and in September 2017, the company launched Tech for Social Impact (TSI), aimed at making technology accessible and affordable for charities. In 2016 Microsoft donated $465m to 71,000 non-profit organisations worldwide and well on their way to their commitment of $1bn per year in cloud services for non-profits and researchers to support the public good. Other changes for their cloud services are on the horizon with Microsoft 365 for Nonprofits, “a complete, intelligent solution, including Office 365, Windows 10, and Enterprise Mobility + Security, that will empower nonprofits to be more creative and collaborate more easily,” and 10 percent discounts on Surface Books and Surface Pros.

The cloud offering from Microsoft currently includes free and unrestricted access to the Office365 E1 plan which includes Exchange, OneDrive, SharePoint, Skype for Business, and Microsoft Teams. OneDrive storage of 1TB per user, 50GB mailbox per user, 99.9% financially backed SLA, telephone support, world-class data security. Microsoft also offer $5000 of Azure credit per year to qualifying charities opening up a new world of enterprise-level products and services and making them relatively easy to use.

There has always been a stigma and fear surrounding cloud storage for data or services, but increasing pressure on providers to adhere to the strictest of security standards mean that your data is much more secure in their hands, than in your own premises. The auditing, version control and alerting abilities within the Office 365 systems will ensure that your organisation will be in turn, adhering to high data quality control standards, which with the impending GDPR introduction will mean that you are well on the way to implementing tight controls, if configured correctly.

For more information, please contact Tech Trust on 0207 324 3380 or email [email protected]
Alternatively contact me at [email protected]