Jun 25 2007
News: Microsoft ditches community refurbishment scheme
In a late breaking story – that many will regard as good news for the open source community – Friday’s The Register warns that Microsoft is unexpectedly withdrawing the Microsoft Authorised Refurbishment (MAR) program.
Under a special licence, authorised refurbishers could install Windows XP or Windows 2000 and Office XP Standard as one bundled package on old computers.
Microsoft’s UK refurbisher site claims to have helped more than 1,000 UK “educational establishments, charities and non-profit organisations” in the last 12 months.
In a statement emailed to The Register, Microsoft said:
“Whilst Office will no longer be available through the MAR programme, registered charities will still be able to obtain Office and a selection of other products through our software donation programme.
“Microsoft’s software donation initiative is run by the Charity Technology Trust. The Charity Technology Exchange (CTX) programme allows UK-based charities and NGOs to request a range of Microsoft software.
“The charities need only pay an admin charge to cover the cost of the programme, and save over 95 per cent on the ERP. For further details please visit the CTX programme.”
The CTX programme – run by Charity Technology Trust – enables eligible UK-based charities to request a wide range of Microsoft and Cisco product donations.
Whilst we can’t find any reference to the withdrawl of MAR scheme on the Microsoft site, according to The Register, Microsoft has confirmed “the software will be withdrawn globally” for unspecified “legal reasons”.
We at ICT Champ Towers prefer to believe that Microsoft has seen the writing on the refurbishers wall as Open Office and various flavours of linux operating systems have long been a favourite and more effective way of breathing new life into old kit.
So, it’s more good news from Microsoft for the open source crowd.
One response so far
This is good news.