Microsoft has announced the global availability of Office365forNonprofits for qualifying non-profits and nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) through its software donation program. The first two countries for Microsoft to Donate will be Kenya and Nigeria along 39 other countries in the world, and is set to extend to up to 90 countries.
“Today we are donating to non-profits and NGOs access to Microsoft’s best-in-class cloud-based productivity and collaboration tools, enabling them to spend fewer resources and time on IT and focus on their missions addressing global issues,” said Jean-Philipe Courtois, President, Microsoft International.
He added that the non-profits do not have resources to implement the latest technology making the donation of office 365 efficient and effective for the kind of work they do.
TechSoup Global who partnered with Microsoft, reported that the top four advantages of cloud computing are easier IT administration, cost-saving, improved collaboration and data security.
The Global Chief information officer, International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC),Edward Happ said that connectivity has been unreliable and equipment’s are quite expensive and that they have a Digital Divide Initiative to build professional capacity to help them work well in challenging environments.
“We have made available Office 365 as our cloud-based solution. This means that the time and energy of the National Society is devoted to helping the vulnerable and not managing their IT systems,” he said.
With the Office 365 for nonprofits, organisations will have he ability to access information form anywhere; they can collaborate easily with email, shared calendar,document sharing and video conferencing; the organisations will also have easy IT implementation, which does not involve uninstalling previous versions; lastly the companies will enjoy reliability.
Microsoft’s donation of Office 365 for nonprofits is part of the company’s 30-year history of community support. In 2013 alone the company donated $795 million in form of cash, software and service to 70,286 nonprofits in more than 115 countries around the world.