The National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship will be the first nonprofit to benefit from Microsoft Corp.'s pledge to donate at least half of the proceeds from its crackdown on software piracy, Reuters News Service reports.

Microsoft executives say the proceeds -- which will be at least $25 million over the next five years -- will go towards technology and education projects around the world, Reuters reports.

Brad Smith, general counsel for worldwide sales and support for Microsoft, said the company has a growing stream of revenues from settlements and criminal penalties assessed against counterfeiters.

In one of its first community donations from settlement money, Microsoft is giving $50,000 of its recovered restitution fees to the Boston chapter of the NFTE.

Through in-school, after-school and summer programs, students apply finance, economics, marketing and technology skills to business problems. The programs are an integrated part of the accredited curriculum in Boston public schools.

The money for the Boston program comes from Crazy Bob's, a Wakefield, Mass.-based discount computer store. William Simons, general manager of the store, was sentenced earlier this month in federal court after pleading guilty to reselling nearly $20 million worth of stolen Microsoft software in California and the United Kingdom from 1994 to 1997.

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