Government and commercial refurbishers worldwide are now eligible to become Microsoft-authorized refurbishers, a designation that makes them eligible for free or low-cost OSs. The Microsoft Authorized Refurbishers (MAR) program was previously limited to nonprofit refurbishers in the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Australia. The change, announced by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates at the company's annual Government Leaders Forum, will reduce the barriers for governments that want to supply their population with low-cost, surplus computers.

Microsoft provides its authorized refurbishers with copies of Windows 98, Windows 2000, and Works 7.0. Microsoft supplies participating organizations with software media, certificates of authenticity, and end user license agreements that can be applied to refurbished PCs, most of which came with a Microsoft OS that was removed when the PCs were donated to a refurbishing organization.

One organization newly eligible for the program is Canada's Computers for Schools Program, a program developed by the Canadian government in 1993 to donate used computers to schools. The program has so far donated about 600,000 refurbished computers in Canada. Microsoft developed the MAR program in 2001, and it expects to donate more than 1 million licenses to refurbishers by 2010.

More information on the MAR program can be found online at https://www.techsoup.org/mar/default.asp.