TechSoup has come to New Zealand, bringing donations of software for community organisations:

TechSoup New Zealand provides donated software and hardware from companies such as Microsoft to eligible New Zealand Charities, Voluntary and Community Groups registered as a charitable organisation under the New Zealand Income Tax Act 2004.

If you’re still persevering with costly proprietary software — programs such as Microsoft Word — this could be very useful for your organisation.

There’s not a lot there for Mac users at the moment: 2 programs. Virtual PC which is of use only to people using older Macs that don’t have an Intel processor, and Powerpoint for those who don’t use Apple’s own Keynote.

Windows users have more than 100 programs listed.

Linux users are likely to use Open Source software anyway.

… New Zealand organisations have already begun to register and receive software donations.

There are minimum product and ordering frequency requirements for eligible organisations with charitable status. So it is important you register now and then think about what your software requirements may be over the coming year.

The software itself is donated free of charge, but there is an administration fee of only 4% of the retail value of the product. This amounts to a mere $13+GST per copy of Windows Vista (Business version), only $27+GST for Office Professional Plus 2007 and $89+GST for Windows Small Business Server 2003 Premium Edition.

[Via : CommunityNet Aotearoa.]

There are, of course, plenty of other options — we often write about them here. For many purposes you can replace Word, Excel and Powerpoint with Google Docs or Open Office, and Mac users have an excellent suite of Apple software in Pages, Numbers and Keynote.

There’s loads of Open Source software available to handle almost everything you can imagine doing with a computer, and many online web applications take the emphasis off storing and using information on isolated computers and allow greater collaboration. For example, Basecamp is an excellent online collaboration tool.

Explore Techsoup and see what it can offer. There may be something there that can save your organisation hundreds of dollars, freeing up funds for more exciting online initiatives.

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