Microsoft actually sells thousands of products when you look at the inner workings of software licensing and Microsoft non profit products are no different. It is interesting to note that as a whole, non profit organizations mostly purchase MS Office. Operating systems are the next most common purchase by these organizations. Then, comes Microsoft Exchange - both servers and CAL's. If you are wonder what a CAL is, it is the actual end user license for something that connects to something else, like a network server and its associated user CAL's.

It was published several years ago that half of all the profits at Microsoft were from the sale of Office. That is one reason why new versions are made and this is a tricky subject. MS would like to have a new version every year although this would be costly for the Microsoft non profit program. But how can this company justify a new version so frequently? It would make the current version seem like it was a waste of money and Microsoft doesn't want to have that distinction. That is why the software is replaced with new versions every few years.

If we all did not upgrade our versions and no one purchased a newer version, everything would be fine. But as the new version comes out, there are newer computer users who then need computers and they get the software that goes with this version. Purchasers, including those using the Microsoft nonprofit program, who find they need a new copy for a new employee get this new version. Large companies do their upgrades and get the new versions. Over a six month period of the launch of the new product, there are millions of users and then over the next few years, the rest of the users end up upgrading. Then, everyone is using this new version including non profit organizations. Then the process starts over.

Do you need a non profit computer or non profit softwarte?