| ▲ | pdonis 2 hours ago | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did Microsoft give fair warning of what was going to happen to the data in the cloud that was stored there under these licenses? (I don't have a Slate account so I can't read the full article to see if this is addressed.) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ▲ | vtbassmatt 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Yes. Disclosure: I work at Microsoft. But I also am the volunteer IT guy at a nonprofit, and am speaking entirely in that context. I was quite unhappy to get a mail back in (checks archives) January that our grant would be discontinued and we’d either have to make do with the web versions of things, migrate someplace, or start paying. They also reminded us several more times before the drop date. I don’t really understand why Microsoft chose to discontinue the nonprofit grants, and it put a little egg on my face after I had recommended it to our board — but they definitely notified us of the change and what it would mean. We’ve opted to pay for now; it’s $3/user/month for the SKU that gets full desktop versions of Office, Teams, etc. so not really breaking the bank compared to all the other things we have to pay for. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| ▲ | lynndotpy 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
> What happened to Khosla was just one instance of a crisis that has rocked small nonprofit owners across the globe, who allege that Microsoft failed to communicate with them in a substantive manner about the license cancellations and left them unable to prepare their organizations for the future. As they’ve related online, these already resource-strapped nonprofits have lost troves of data, are struggling to continue their operations, and have been left unable to make up the technology gaps with alternative services. People who run service orgs with low budgets and benefited for years from Microsoft’s programs no longer have much of the technology they need to keep things going—for either the short or long term. This quote contains linked sources but I can't see them since they're largely on Reddit and Facebook. The Microsoft ones suggest people were blindsided by this cancellation, and that the official support channels in Microsoft are broken. It seems like everyone who was blindsided also tried to submit an official support ticket and was unable to, which is in line with my experience interacting with Microsoft. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| ▲ | NordSteve 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The second paragraph of the email: We strongly advise transitioning your users to a different Microsoft 365 offer for nonprofits, before the subscription is cancelled, to avoid disruption and data loss. Connect now with your current Microsoft partner – or find a partner – to get started. Learn more about what happens to your data and access when your subscription ends. That last sentence links to https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/commerce/sub... | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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