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You had the emails no doubt, offering you amazing top brand software at ridiculous prices. Beware! 99 times out of 100 these are going to be dodgy and ought to serve no part of a church's inventory as more than likely they are nothing other than copied CD's (which is of course theft), or ones which do not carry the correct license for your use. However, what if there was a way for churches to buy software at honest discount prices. What if you could get the very latest version of Microsoft Office 2003 Premium for a little more than £100? Would that be good? Of course it would - and best of all, you can, and you can do it legally and properly too.
Most software manufacturers use a table of prices for their software depending on the end user, so one customer might buy Microsoft Office for £459 and another can buy the exact same product for £130. There is method in their madness of course. Those who pay the full whack are businesses making a profit from the use of the software and normally with more money to spend. Those who pay less are those who can't afford the full whack yet, but might in the future. Perhaps it's a way of being nice - or perhaps (synically) it's a way of getting people hooked into a brand or product early, so they pay full price later on when they are no longer a student. Who knows. What I do know is that the student licensing schemes have grown into a sideline licensing scheme for charities - and mostly that includes churches.
In fact, you can even make a case for being involved in education if you work closely with your school. Our youthworker recently was able, legitimately, to buy a new Apple Mac computer with a 20% education discount because of the work he does in our local school.
But the charity licensing scheme includes companies like Microsoft, Adobe, Corel, Mcafee and Sophos all getting in on the act and making their softwareavailable to charities at vastly reduced prices.
When is a charity not a charity
There is a catch though which Church of England parishes sometimes fall foul of. If you don't have a charity number then you sometimes can't obtain the software. The trouble lies with the Charity Commissioners kindly exempting individual Church of England parishes from registering with them as a charity. CofE parishes hold full charity status with the charity commissioners, but because we have no individual registered charity numbers there is a box left blank on the application form for some of these companies who offer software at vastly reduced rates to charities. The thing is, the box which is left blank, our charity number, is the one thing they will accept as proof that we are bone fide charities. Annoying isn't it. I had a huge wrangle with Adobe who in the end kindly relented and said I could, on this occassion, buy a couple of licenses of their Creative Suite. they made it clear this was a one off though until they had a chance to review their whole charity licensing scheme. I have tried to get an update but to no avail.
However, if you work through a company like Pugh they will guide you through the process and advise you on what is available.
In short, there is little excuse for churches and church workers to be paying through the nose for quality software, or indeed, using inferior software, anymore. The list will only grow hopefully, so keep an eye out at Pugh for information and details on what you can get legally and cheaply to aid you in your ministry.
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