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I'm sure most people are (rightly) going to take Microsoft's word on this with a great deal of skepticism, but kudos to them for at least responding to it in a timely fashion and with what appears to be a responsible approach to the allegations.

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Agreed - more importantly, kudos to the New York Times for their original report (which seems to have convinced Microsoft to change their policy).

Although the Committee to Protect Journalists originally reported this tactic being used against the free press in Bishkek back in April:

http://cpj.org/blog/2010/04/microsoft-piracy-and-independent...

Non profits and NGO get phenomenal deals in terms of licensing software from Microsoft, from my personal experience i dont know of any other company that offers anything similar.

The international reach needs to be improved though, as stated.

Microsoft mentioned Infodonor program (http://www.infodonor.ru), and they have Symantec here too. The program was created by TechSoup (http://home.techsoup.org/pages/default.aspx).

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