Microsoft pulls MS365 Business Premium from nonprofits

Microsoft is pulling the free MS365 Business Premium licenses granted to non-profits and replacing them with Business Basic and discounts for its other services. The announcement was made this week and surprised many users. Teams is still there, but many other services, such as Intune, are absent... According to Microsoft …

[AlanSh]

It's a pain - but there is a better solution

I am one of those affected. No, it's not a lot, but as a charity, we don't have money to waste.

What they didn't tell you is that there is an offer called "Business Standard" which is 1/4 of the price of Business Premium and still gives you the desktop apps. It turns out the "Premium" part is all about security (from MS? Hah!!).

So, all you people affected - go and look for Business Standard - it will do what you want.

Alan

[ComputerSays_noAbsolutelyNo]

Re: It's a pain - but there is a better solution

Premium also gives you Intune.

For large orgs, having a central management is really nice. Otherwise yeah, Standard is good enough.

[exovert]

Re: It's a pain - but there is a better solution

There is a discrete nonprofit intune plan 1. Whether that's also up for culling I'd be less than fully certain, though I didn't see it listed in any of the several upset charities I've seen forwarded emails from this week. It's still extra.

Large orgs can afford a large licence bill. Is I expect not recorded in an e-discoverable email somewhere.

[NoneSuch]

$88.1 Billion

That's what they posted as profit in their last financial report.

And with that, they decide to screw over charities to pay out more dividends to their shareholders.

Sort of like Broadcom, but with a better PR department.

Muck Ficrosoft.

[Hubert Cumberdale]

Re: It's a pain - but there is a better solution

The fees they charge for business licences are just a bit silly. That's why, as a sole trader, I just get the Family edition (from the cheapest country I can find). Fuck 'em, I say. And no, I can't use LibreOffice, or I would.

[BobChip]

Re: It's a pain - but there is a better solution

Can't use LibreOffice? Why not? People in my working group - 50 + in our local network - use MS, Linux and Apple OSs, and their office suites, all the time to create and exchange documents without any difficulty. Just take care to watch your save and send formats before you commit.

If you are a free agent, have another look. If you are constrained by a "big brother" business policy............ well hard luck.

[Roland6]

Re: It's a pain - but there is a better solution

Alternatively, particularly if you are small, go Business Basic (still offering 300 free) and purchase digital download licences for MS Office 2024 for those users you are providing laptops and desktops to.

Recently did this at £24 for 3 device licence (note device not user licence :) !!) seemed a bargain.

[Doctor Syntax]

"Our goal ... is to ensure nonprofits can benefit from the industry leading solutions that are critical to ensuring the highest level of organizational security and productivity."

Good, public spirited approach.

As such, it is generously removing the ten licenses for Microsoft 365 Business Premium that it previously granted to non-profits.

So far so good. Then it all goes wrong talking about replacements.

[Groo The Wanderer - A Canuck]

Oh, you're a charity? Well, we're going to screw you the same as our other customers. It's not like it's your money, so bend over and squeal, boy!

[gv]

Microsoft and "industry leading solutions that are critical to ensuring the highest level of organizational security and productivity" is a canonical oxymoron.

[Baird34]

Mean-Spiritedness

As is quite common nowadays, the numbers may be trivial, but the 'mean-ness' is the point.

[Alien Doctor 1.1]

Fortunately...

several of our charity staff run Linux at home, so I will be switching charity kit OS to Mint with LibreOffice as our workload suite.

I have wanted this for a couple of years and now am fully justified.

[exovert]

Re: Fortunately...

I don't even know what to call it. Addiction seems like it doesn't meet the mark. Throw out your <= Gen 8 core computers, hand over all your email & communications and why not just the rest of your wallet while you're at it. But the Chief execs still want their surfaces & whatever their consultant mates are selling, that they understand and have control over even less.

I've worked inside a charity, currently support a number from outside. I've never been less happy about the idea of giving money to charities (don't worry, I pay for all those podcasts people listen to and skip ads on).

If it only took being fully justified to be correct. Should you learn the secret to making this translate into sense please share it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Fortunately...

Am currently consulting for a charity, and honestly the amount of money wasted on six-figure salaries of people who add literally zero value (if anything they subtract value) is astonishing.

While on one hand I feel bad that I'm costing the charity a very high day rate, I don't feel bad because for what they're paying for me on a finite basis they'll actually be left with something tangible and useful - as opposed to the millions in salaries they're paying to senior and middle management on an ongoing basis who literally do nothing apart from play politics and throw spanners in the works of each others projects.

This particular charity could so clearly do so much more with so much less, but it's not in the interests of those with the power to make those decisions to do so, mainly because it involves culling themselves, several of their immediate colleagues, and most of their direct reports.

I honestly don't know how they all sleep at night.

[an.other_tech]

Re: Fortunately...

For those charities that have volunteers fundraise, how incredibly wasteful and selfish do they see these execs ?

Why are they on six or seven figure salaries if they add nothing ?

Would have suggested that they switched to libre or open office years ago.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Fortunately...

Unfortunately a lot of charities have a high staff/volunteer turnover, so the IT needs to be as standard as you can make it to ensure familiarity. If the computers are seen as hard to use (because people aren't familiar with that software) people will be more reluctant to work on them.

And the figures that some of these places work with, £10/user/month is nothing. For other places it's unaffordable. I work with charities in both camps.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Fortunately...

It saddens me that there's a perception of charities as having overpaid management. I volunteer for a niche heritage charity that scrapes by on a shoestring with nothing in reserve after Covid trashed our income. Paid staff receive little more than minimum wage and we're currently on the scrounge for three or four workstations to replace those that can't run Windows 11. Withdrawing these free licences will cost us around £500/year which we can ill afford but won't have a choice so maintenance or education or outreach will suffer. This move will hit small charities disproportionately hard. Thanks Microsoft.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Fortunately...

They can run Windows 11. Use Rufus to create the install media.

[Excused Boots]

"Microsoft is pulling the free MS365 Business Premium licenses granted to non-profits and replacing them with Business Basic and discounts for its other services."

Why is the term 'gateway drug' coming to mind?

MS, 'let's screw some extra money from charities' - not a good look is it?

[elsergiovolador]

Guess

Let me guess. Thought they could mine the data, figured data from the "poor" is not as valuable as they thought and so the rug pull?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand the Hate

So I'm not really a fan of MS, as I type this up on a Linux desktop... but I also don't get why they are getting called "mean spirited" or this is referred to as "meanness." Microsoft is not "trying to screw charities." They're a business and they need to manage their ongoing productivity against the successful selling of products to stay in business. They're also firing about 3% of their workforce right now, so what they've done here is try to compromise between giving away free product (which they still are, to a degree) while also keeping their staff employed.

https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/16/microsofts_axe_software_developers/

Just because an org is a charity doesn't mean it's entitled to free product from any company.

On the other hand, Linux is free and if you need tech support, you can literally just ask any AI nowadays, and mostly they'll even generate terminal commands and bash scripts, if you need that level of assistance and the GUI isn't cutting it.

[kmorwath]

"Just because an org is a charity doesn't mean it's entitled to free product"

That is true. The difference is first giving them away for free and then starting to ask money, or have to store all your data "in the cloud" (AKA the AI trough). Especially since some nono profits may handle very sensitive data. And that's not from a company who struggle to make profits, but one that sits on billions every quarter. But probably today Nadella asks its AI what his next move will be, to uensure him a fatter bonus.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: I don't understand the Hate

"They're a business and they need to manage their ongoing productivity against the successful selling of products to stay in business."

What, you think MS don't have savvy accountants that are writing off the discounts as "charitable donations" and claiming a tax break? If anything, the cost of changing the way the discounts works is probably costing them money since no matter the level of discount, it's almost certainly all "tax deductible", which just makes the reasons for doing this all the more puzzling. Maybe, as someone suggested up thread, it's more about "meanness" than charity or corporate image.

[chivo243]

Re: I don't understand the Hate

Um, Hello? It could be a tax benefit to help the NPOs? Donations? Item 376b on the Corporate tax return? Good will to fellow man etc? And above all Smelling like a Rose for doing the right thing?

Posting near record profits, and cutting employees? Smells like something M$ stepped in.

[FirstTangoInParis]

Re: I don't understand the Hate

Well let’s see what M$ annual report says in corporate social responsibility. Ah yes we screwed over a whole bunch of charities. Is that ok, Orange Leader and DOGE meister?

[Tron]

Alternatives.

There are some, including LibreOffice. Using Linux etc.

But I would point out that you won't be thrown in jail or die if you don't use tech. Organisations functioned perfectly well before tech and before the internet. Obviously you need tech for internet stuff and e-mail, but you can do a lot on PAPER. And if you audit what you do and the way you do it, you may be able to do a lot less of it.

We should all be thinking about using less tech, using simpler tech, and using tech that never touches the public internet to improve our budgets and security.

[kmorwath]

We neeed data to train AIs...

.... so what's better than using our online apps? All of your data will belong to us!

[navarac]

If you need a reason....

If anyone really needs a reason to think again about using this avaricious American company, this must it. After all the profit they made in the last quarter, a little bit of charity would not hurt, or perhaps their AI vision is beginning to crumble and Nadella is running scared of his bonus crashing as well? Talk about luring the vulnerable into a corner for profit.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called bait-and-switch and it's illegal, Microbrains.

[Always Right Mostly]

How stuff works

The universe may not be infinite but greed is.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Lord^H^H^H^H Microsoft giveth and Microsoft taketh away.

The Lord Microsoft giveth and Microsoft taketh away.

I would take the Almighty any day against any dealings with Microsoft. Even the infernal fiend would admit that based on his experience like Dinsdale Piranha the Lord might be cruel but is fair. Even dealing with horned chap is likely to be less traumatic than dealing with any big tech.

I would have thought they could claim the forgone revenue for those 10 licenses as a tax deduction which might cost more than in the end ...

...but silly me! These corporate citizens don't actually pay tax.

If they ever had a social licence they have long since lost it on the uncountable demerit points they have wilfully accumulated.