Understanding The Microsoft I-Café Program

The two-week old MS I-Café Program is undoubtedly the most serious move of the giant software company to entice current i-café owners using pirated or cracked Windows operating system and Office productivity suite to legalize their use of the software owned by Microsoft. Not only are the prices of the software the lowest ever offered to the industry, the documentary requirements for an i-café to qualify under the program are very easy to comply with. I-Café Pilipinas, in its effort to help i-café owners to understand the program better, will run a series of articles about the MS I-Café Program starting with this post.

Let us begin our understanding of the MS I-Café Program by discussing who are the target joiners and who are qualified to avail or join the program to be able to buy the software at promo prices until May 26, 2010. For the target joiners of the program, any internet café with 5 or more units that currently operate but NOT using genuine Windows XP Professional Edition, Windows Vista or Windows 7 and MS Office 2007 can apply to be part of the program and buy Windows 7 and Office 2007 including Rental Rights Licenses of the software.

Not all operational i-cafés mentioned above are automatically entitled to the price benefits offered in the promo., they need to apply and be qualified first. There are actually two (2) groups of i-cafés that can avail of the program; namely, the pre-qualified ones who are in the Microsoft Eligibility List and those who are not in the eligibility list but will apply for the program and can satisfy its simple documentary requirements. Let me clarify the classifications of the two (2) groups as follows:

A) The Pre-Qualified I-Cafés - These are the i-cafés who had previous purchase history of Microsoft products similar to those offered in the program and those ones whose owners had participated in one of the past MS-sponsored events. Microsoft has a database of these i-cafés which their distributors can access online so i-café owners falling into this group can immediately purchase their needs without the need to submit the documentary requirements of the other group described below.

B) The Other Group That Must Undergo Qualification Procedure - If a café owner applies for the program but is not in the MS Eligibility List, he must submit the following to be able to join the MS I-Café Program:

1. Two (2) pictures of his i-cafe with one  showing the facade and the other showing the inside view of his shop.

2. A copy of SEC registration for a corporate-owned i-café or a copy of DTI registration for a single-owned Internet shop.

3. A copy of the Business Permit or Barangay Clearance of the i-café.

Those falling under Group "A" can immediately have their order for software and/or RRL needs processed  as soon as the authorized MS reseller gets the verification from his distributor and this can happen at the time the pre-qualified i-café owners talk to resellers. For those falling under Group "B", the qualification procedure may take two (2) working days at the soonest and five (5) working days as the longest waiting time before their orders are processed.

Let us end here our first installment of articles about MS I-Café Program. You may post your comments and queries about this discussion using the response box below or you may use our forums where this article is also started as a topic.