Kenyatta Avenue in the middle of Westlands - Courtesy of Googlemaps

now that we have Kenyatta Av in Westlands what else should we expect from google maps, Nakuru in Parklands?

Social Entrepreneurship or CSR

Coming from a marketing background, I always thought that social entrepreneurship is related to marketing, to my surprise it is not, social entrepreneurship is not at all related to corporate social responsibility, which is an element of evolved marketing.

To make you understand Corporate Social Responsibility, is the continuing commitment by businesses to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of life of the workforce and their families as well as of the local community and society at large, please note the key terms being businesses and society, businesses primary missions are profit making, but they do so while considering the society, therefore the society well being is their secondary mission.

Social entrepreneurship on the other hand is the use of entrepreneurial skills to solve social problems, is the recognition of a social problem and the uses of entrepreneurial principles to organize, create and manage a social venture to achieve a desired change. The primary mission of social entrepreneurship is society well being.

Looking back home in Kenya one name has become a key ingredient whenever we speak of social entrepreneurship, ie the late Prof. Wangari Maathai, the founder of Green Belt Movement, an environmental non-governmental organization focused on the planting of trees, environmental conservation, and women's rights. Her primary mission was the well being of the society and she even won Nobel peace prize in 2004 for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace.

With such a statement, "when I see Uhuru Park and contemplate its meaning, I feel compelled to fight for it so that my grandchildren may share that dream and that joy of freedom as they one day walk there.”Wangari Muta Maathai, you truly understand social entrepreneurship.

Conclusion, social entrepreneurship is very different from CSR, but an individual can use CSR on his social venture, in comparison  a company, cannot be a social venture for as long as the primary mission is profit making.

Lesson Two - Advantages of Data Centers

Doing my round of research on Data Centers, I have managed to get a blog that fully explains Data Centers, so without any delete or additions, I give credit to John

In today's fiercely competitive environment, any business - small, medium or large - can succeed only if it maintains business continuity, which in turn, is mostly dependent on automated data handling systems. In the wake of recent natural and other calamities, companies have increased their investments in highly secure storage and retrieval systems for their data.

For companies whose core business is not IT, it makes better business sense to outsource the storage and maintenance of these systems. This strategy allows them to save time and money while harnessing the power of IT as a force multiplier for their core business.

What is a data center? 
A data center is simply a room that facilitates the storage and management, of servers and other computing equipment of any company in a precision-controlled environment. But for small and medium businesses, an in-house data center is an expensive proposition in many ways: 

• High initial investment in space and equipment
• High day-to-day management costs
• Hiring and retaining personnel to maintain the data center
• High cost of upgrading technology and acquiring newer services

In this scenario, it becomes far more economical to outsource this service to a colocation data center.

What is colocation? 
A colocation (also known less popularly as 'co-location') data center is a facility where the servers and other computing equipment belonging to different companies share space. Each company's equipment is physically secured in a wire cage or cabinet with high security locking systems.

Why colocation? 
Colocation offers businesses several advantages with regard to time and money. 

• You don't have to worry about recurring capital costs if you are upgrading since you can rent more space (or give up space if you are downsizing)
• You are saved the expense of hiring and training your own personnel to operate and maintain your systems. If you have to upgrade, having your own personnel means additional training costs or paying outside consultants.

Who uses colocation data centers? 
The answer is: almost any company whose business continuity is dependent on smooth access to flow of data and for whom system downtime is not an option. 

• Web-based e-commerce companies use the colocation data center facilities to ensure a safe environment for their equipment, plus economical and redundant connections to the Internet
• Major non-IT entrepreneurs use the facility for economic data storage and management, as well as safety from disasters
• Telecommunication companies use colocation data center facilities to exchange traffic with other telcos and also to provide reliable access to potential clients

Facilities at Colocation Data Centers 
Colocation data centers offer physical space on lease to customers for housing their servers and other computing devices. You install your servers and/or other telecommunication equipment in the physical space leased from the data center. The leased space is typically comprised of either full cabinets or portions of a cabinet measured in Rack Units or RU (1RU corresponds to 1.75 vertical inches of space). Much larger spaces, like a caged section of a room or complete private rooms or suites, are also available depending on your requirements.

All leased space is supported by: 

• Precision-controlled air-conditioning systems with incorporated redundancy
• 24x7 power back-up systems for all equipment to ensure zero downtime or minimal disruption in operations due to power failure
• High-capacity, reliable power generators
• State-of-the-art fire detection and suppression systems to guard against potential losses due to fire
• Sophisticated onsite security through surveillance cameras and advanced biometric systems to prevent unauthorized entry
• Networking equipment including state-of-the-art, fully redundant high-end switches and routers, BGP4 routing for optimal path selection and full redundancy, etc

Most colocation centers also offer SLAs (service level agreements) to support a host of computer and networking services like server reboots, software updates, hardware repairs / replacements, disaster recovery, etc.

Advantages of colocation 

• Financial Gains: Small and medium companies have a lot to gain by opting for colocation. For one, there is an enormous amount of money to be saved (between 25%-75%) on infrastructure, technology and human resources. This leaves them free to concentrate on their core business areas.
• Better Connectivity: Acquiring and maintaining a T1 line or a fiber optic line to connect your networks is an expensive proposition. Moreover, if your ISP turns out to be unreliable, you could lose valuable business. Provisioning a T1 or fiber optic line at a colocation data center is economical and most centers support multiple ISPs through fiber optic lines or VSAT. Also, colocating mission critical servers at data centers with fully redundant network connections ensures that business critical applications will always run smoothly.
• Easy disaster recovery: Data centers also create disaster recovery sites. In the event of a snag with the primary server, the entire network automatically switches to an alternate mirrored site within a few minutes. So outsourcing disaster recovery also costs much less than what it would to set it up in-house.
• Improved Network security: Most data centers offer state-of-the-art network security, including fully updated firewalls / IDS applications to detect and prevent unauthorized intrusions into their clients' systems. They employ qualified technical personnel with certifications like CCNA and MCSE to monitor the networks 24X7 and alert clients of any potential trouble.

In the wake of disasters like 9/11 and other natural disasters, depending on a single office to keep business-critical applications running is risky. Most companies are now taking steps to plan for such events by implementing a disaster recovery plans that include colocation facilities inside internet data centers. Data centers provide the best data management, system maintenance and up-to-date security services without the issues that accompany owning and operating a similar facility.

By utilizing collocation services in a data center facility, you will realize an immediate benefit in terms of costs saving and improved redundancy.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=John_Tourloukis

Lesson One -Case study, benefits accrued from data center consolidation

Data center consolidation is a popular strategy showing powerful economic characteristics. Major organizations are reaping the benefits of consolidation, as shown by the following examples:

• Hewlett Packard is cutting its 85 global data centers down to six--three of which will be mirrored disaster recovery sites. HP expects this move to save the company $1 billion annually.
   
• IBM is consolidating 3,900 servers into 30 virtualized mainframes running under Linux. The company anticipates an 80% reduction in energy usage while significantly shrinking its current 8 million square feet of data center space.
   
• Microsoft is well along in its data center consolidation efforts, producing a savings of $23.2 million--a 40% cut in its pre-consolidation spending levels.
   
• Williams-Sonoma, Inc. is moving 100 stand-alone servers onto five IBM Regatta Unix servers. This effort eliminated the need to add 50 more stand-alone servers next year to handle increased processing demands.

source : http://www.computereconomics.com

Marketing, In my Opinion ......

During my time in between high school and college, that time when you are really confused on what you want in life, I got an  opportunity to work for Coca-Cola as their temporary marketing researcher, that is when I placed my foot down and decided am going to study marketing.

True to my belief, 8+ years down the line am still in the marketing field, but much concentration on sales, I love commissions that come with sales compared to marketing, I call it "commission possible", back to the real issue, after consuming so much information about marketing, both from an external examiner (by external I mean international certifications) to internal (local) examiners, I thought I knew it all on marketing.

My first marketing gig I did was as a marketing manager, this was after staying in technical department for a longer period of time, thus I was not only confused but overwhelmed, this is when I realized that the first statements that were made by my lecturer, "marketing is all about passing information to clients, to make them know you, like you and trust you. These three things made me develop marketing in my opinion.

As marketing personnel, whether new in the system or an old school, looking for fresh and innovative ways, these three key ingredients should be your basis for success, in my opinion. I shall focus on each to make you the marketer, understand marketing in a simpler perspective;

Make customers know you.

These is a continuous process, it not only involves startups or new products, as marketers we all strive at outdoing competition, whenever, competitors develop new USP's you have to let your customers "know" about your new and improved USP's.

How do we ensure the market knows about us, simple now use what the lecturers taught you in school to do promotion, TV ads, newspaper ads, field activations, radio ads etc., that way the market shall know about you.

Make customers like you

After customers have known you, you do not wish again to incur costs making them to know about your improved USP's, this is where liking comes in, make the client like you in order to avoid their need for alternatives.

So how do you make the customers like you, simple, after sales service, quick warranty solutions, send simple thank you notes( now you can simply use sms ,check sematime.com to learn more) treat the client as the king, give them the chair, tea, parking space etc. imagine Facebook has a like button, twitter with follow, so why not create such pages and make customers like you? clients are like small babies, they love small things, in return you have a long term customer, more business more money.

Make the customer trust you.

A customer may know you or even like you but you are not always sure if they trust you, trust is always built after a longer period of time one spends in a relationship, "shup" I have already spilt the marketing activities, yes, customer relationship management, comes in here, do beyond the obvious, be the shoulder to lean on when the client cries, and most importantly be proactive, i.e. anticipate the likely problems that may face the customer and have solutions at hand, even a simple user guide can work the trick.

These guys this is real marketing not the one of 4P's, in my opinion, work out through this simple guides and you shall have a winning marketing campaign.

My petition to Government to scrap off August in Kenya

It is with sad sorrow to do these, as me and millions of Kenyans celebrate our birthdays on this month, thus it should really be memorable, of course for me it has always been memorable, with birthday cake and sweets each month, thanks to mum who bakes cakes, sorry to me am minus four very important teeth.

For the last three decades I have really enjoyed August, but 2012 has made me change my mind after the carjacking event, thus I shall focus on the events surrounding August in Kenya and also include August 2012.

August 1982 - Coup d’état - this was the ugliest moment on the Kenyan history for those who were around will tell you, it is the moment when the economy came to a standstill.

August 22 1978 - the death of our founding father Mzee Jomo Kenyatta the first president of the republic of Kenya, in Mombasa.

August 1998 The bomb blast occurred in Nairobi.

August 1990 Alexander Muge , Bishop of Anglican Diocese of Eldoret was Murdered.

August 1992 Masinde Muliro passed on.

August 2003 Hon Kijana Wamalwa vice president of the republic of Kenya dies.

Today, Martin Shikuku, Josephine Michuki, 52 dead in Tana river, 4 dead in Maasai Mara and others in Northern Kenya.

As I publish these blog on the first day of September am glad August is all over.

The snails power of a mini laptop

Being used to a core 2 duo, three gigabit Ram and a cooling power of a Dell Inspiron Laptop, then downgraded down to an Atom run laptop is such a pain. To make you understand I shall briefly give you the specifications;

Processor – has a processor known as Atom, it was made so small in order to fit into a mini laptop, imagine it being the same technology as the one of smart phones, back to processor speeds it has a maximum clock rate of 800 Mhz, FSB speed of 400Mhz and it is even smaller than a Eurocent coin.

Ram – the thing runs at a one gigabit Ram, this is the size that caters only for compulsory programs such as antivirus, Wi-Fi, updater etc., leaving you with a very small amount of memory to run your daily applications, the result being hanging and patiently waiting for each application to use the tiny Ram before you move to the next.

Size – in fact these should have been my first issue as I was used to a 15.6 inch screen then dramatically downloaded to a 11 inch screed, now with my eyes problem matters become worse, all projects seem to work properly from my screen but when I send o someone with superb quality screen the quality of the project is questioned.

Graphics- with a smaller size, smaller Ram, the graphics is zero, in fact negative, every time I open something that requires high graphics the poor thing restarts, or flickers the screen, so movies, games, graphic design even simple Dreamweaver cannot run on the thing.

Operating system – now am forced to go back to Windows XP, before being forcefully downgraded, I was already doing test on the Windows 8 beta version and my take was a I shall shift once it has been launched, unfortunately I am back to Windows XP, which Gates has already warned me that he shall no longer support it from September 2012. With Windows XP, it is full of limitations, you cannot quickly organise your folders or even simply searching your files, the small thing can only run on windows 7 starter which is even worse since you cannot join any domain, so the only option is Windows XP Pro.

Optical drive – since I deal mostly with software’s, most are recorded in optical disks, unfortunately the thing doesn’t have one forcing me to borrow a machine, copy the cd in a flash drive, back to the thing then copy all over again sh**.

Antivirus – this thing does not let you choose what antivirus you should use, being an advent fan of Kaspersky small office security, which usually runs on a dedicated four hundred megabytes of ram, for me now it is a go no zone I have to play along with Norton which is lighter, but has annoying warning every time you have an application using any of the resources heavily.

Lastly the thing that disappoints me the most is the battery power, being used to go five hours straight without looking for a power source, now I am confided to one and half hours. Now this is what we call urban – rural migration.

Whatever your case is at least we have a netbook, which we all proudly call laptop, and no matter how slow the thing is, or its refusal to cooperate with some of our demands at least we have one.

My worst Day !!

Well we usually do not dread to have a bad day, but well what exactly causes a bad day, is it getting dumped after investing so much in a relationship, or is it loosing hard earned cash from a con, either way it gets you, you just have to pick up the pieces that are left and stand up even stronger. As a sign i have just read today in a matatu "Do not mind what your enemies throw at you, it only makes you stronger"

Back to my story, the day looked bright as I had prepared myself well for a paper I had on this fateful day.

5.30 am - I did not have enough sleep (imagine i slept at 2 am watching "persons of interest" TV series), so waking up I had outdid myself, had a heavy breakfast to see me through to 2pm when i shall be done with the paper.

6.30 am - Already in town but sh** it has started raining, saw it as a blessing because normally when it rains while am doing my exams I get straight A's, but that was not the concern, people in Nairobi become extremely crazy when it starts raining, therefore I picked the longest cut to campus to avoid bad luck.

11.30 am - already am 10 minutes late to exams as I had forgotten my spectacles at the school library and had to go back and collect them and as you understand today in Nairobi, if you have an appointment go ten minutes earlier to give time for the guards to ask you clinical questions and frisk you up as well as your bags.

2 pm the exams went well, in fact I finished the paper before time, and on opening my cell I get a message from one of my clients, He issues me with a very potential referral, and at that point am Happy and I run to see the client.

4 pm- I do not get to understand why my university during exam period cannot create extra rooms for us to revise, as I walk through the corridors they are all full with people trying to cram for their next examinations, but am lucky because of the relationship I have created with the guards am told of a place in the campus that is free (imagine for me to create a rapport with the guards, every time we meet I have to part with my hard earned Twenty shillings)

6 pm the guard tells me that during exams they normally close at six and I should pack my bags and go home, even the rains excuses could not land on his deaf ears he still insisted I needed to leave, I walk out with the heavy rains and go to the library, these time am lucky as sixty percent of the students have already left so I get a comfortable seat.

9 pm - I feel that am ready for the next exam, so I pack my bags and call it a day, leave and walk from university way to railways, with small showers, but I walk as I hymn the amazing grace as I know one day I shall not be walking with the rains but driving through the rains.

10 pm - still at the bus station, no matatus, still raining and every matatu coming is charging three times the fare, which definitely is out of my budget, so I wait.

10.30 pm - a bus comes with a fairer price and am the first one to jump in, usually for buses I prefer going in one of the last people and check around on suspicious people as I have a bad experience of hijacking.

On the way along Mombasa road, i hear a gun being cocked within minutes one of the gangs takes over the bus we are ransacked, valuables are stolen, actually I won’t write mine down because in future I do not wish to remember what I lost on these fateful day, finally after twenty minutes of the horrible ordeal, I was slapped four times while requesting for my books remember I was doing my exams, and later dumped in a dark alley.

11.20 pm - we are able to reach the nearest police station or police officer and we narrate our ordeal, where the only thing am seeing them doing is to ask as a lot of questions instead of sending a team along the route to check if they could get the thugs.

12.30 am still at the police station, the bus did not have fuel and at that time of the night we could not get any other means to go home so we had to wait for the owner to come and bail us out, which he does but on arrival what he does first is to check if his vehicle is okay, any way after narrating our ordeal he decided to take us home.

1.00 am - am home shaking, stressed out because i have another paper to do the same day, remember it’s the next day already, not able to eat, counting my loses, I manage to communicate with my loved ones and their words, they are the pillars of my life.

2.00am I manage to pull myself to bed but cannot sleep I was seeing the images of the thugs, God please save them because they do not know what they are doing; I manage to get a one hour sleep.

5.00 am – I am up and ready for a new day, with lots of blessings.

I dedicate these blog to my loved ones who have been with me through this horrific experience, and to God who took care of me during this period and to my colleagues at work who understand that I was slow on my targets because of the experience and finally to the thugs, may God bless you.

BYE BYE HOTMAIL !

Dear Hotmail,

After all these years this is a difficult time for me to say goodbye, we shared fun times and bad times. Do you remember the day I was anxiously waiting for an interview reply and you ended up delivering the mail after two days and almost cost my second interview? Do you also remember the first love letter I through you, which this time you delivered on time and resulted for me having a one month stand?

Such are the memories which will go down the lane for us being friends.

Now because our relationship has come to an end kindly let me tell you what i disliked the most about you:

·         AD's those ads which used to pop up on my screen every now and then were annoying, sometimes I thought you were doing this deliberately to test our relationship, as much as I was faithful, it was sometimes difficult not to face away from mpango wa kando.

·         Mobile site- these is something you always promised to give me but our relationship ended without you even acknowledging my request.

·         Too many colors, do you remember when I indicated to you clearly that I have eye problems and when it comes to colors too much of it causes me to be blind, but you chose to ignore, basically all you did is to add more colors each day.

·         I never understood why you were slow, every time I opened my mail I could only see a loading yellow tab below my screen, sometimes you would load till I move on and leave yourself loading, this was very disturbing.

But with all this mistakes I still slept with because:

·         I was never hacked to like yahoo, refer previous blog

·         I was able to synchronize you with my Microsoft outlook and be able to store a backup of my mails

·         when you felt pity about my hard disk space you gave me 25GB free of hard disk space, no one even Google has ever been this generous to me.

·         You were able to filter spam and ensure I do not get to read those enlargement pills in my mail box( super kudos for these)

I could go on and on about why you were the best, but this might make you hang on me while already I have moved on to your sister outlook.com

SALESMAN.....the simple steps

In my recent blogs I have tended to incline much on technology forgetting what puts food on my table i.e. sales and marketing. To most people sales executives are the typical insurance agents who nag you from 6 am in the morning until the wee hours of the night just to empty your hard earned cash, but sales is one interesting field to work in. In most cases I consider myself a psychologist, some of you are laughing, “how can a typical sales person be a scientist?"

Let me take you through a typical sales process for you to understand how scientifically the process feels, for your information now UoN is offering MSc in Marketing, definitely awesome.

One I shall prospect for leads, normally in the sales process, this part includes researching on potential customers, but for you to understand what actually happens, at this stage most of us learn about the product its pros and cons.

Two, I set appointments with the prospects, but I normally prefer cold calling where I shall get the customer off guard and they shall not really be in a position to chase me away but rather they listen to what I have to offer, usually I get the receptionists as the first contact, and my dimples always grants me enough time for presentations.

Three, qualification, time wasted cannot be recovered, at this stage I look and listen at the customer and get to know within the first 10 minutes whether they shall purchase or not( now this is pure psychology) and decide whether to continue with the presentation or run.

Number four is the presentation time, here I shall give the customer the freedom to test drive the product, create a need that was not there, make the product outperform the competitor, at these stage I normally ensure I leave the customer with goose bumps.

The customer shall always raise objections about your product, that is where number five comes in, handling objections, this is that stage that will ever exist in the sales cycle, and the best way to sail through is preparation before the presentation, ensure you have all the necessary objections that might be raised by a customer and how to overcome them as this stage it is usually the examination stage.

Six, win, win and always win, the stage is not called win but negotiation, and in negotiation I normally call it “the commission possible” where the only mission is to win and make the customer see they have also won.

The last stage is to close the sale, deliver and collect payment, but at this stage it is only your boss who will be happy and the second day you shall be fired, so ensure you get referrals from the customer as these shall form your opening remarks on the second sale.

Finally always call/visit the customer once in a while, this shall not only create long term relationship, but shall ensure the customer never moves to the competitor.

GOOD LUCK TO ALL SALES EXECUTIVES....

Tech ? 50 sites that you should follow

Tech being an area where one ought to be up to date, and coming from a background where I never studied ICT, I have personally relied a lot with tech blogs to enhance my technical skills.
Techrepublic is such website that offers ideas, I especially rememberer when mini laptops were introduced into the Kenyan market, i was one of the few techs who could actually open up the laptop and do diagnosis thanks to Techrepublic.
as i was going through http://techtalkasia.com, I saw something worth sharing to my techfriends( think should trademark these) and there list of top 50 site a tech should follow:

1. CNET: CNET is a great resource for tech and business news.
2. Apple Insider: Detailed information about Apple products and prices
3. Bits: Informative tech news updates
4. PC World: Valuable tech news and product reviews
5. TechDirt: Provides information on important tech issues
6. TheNextWeb: Provides news and views from tech writers around the world
7. Venturebeat: Sicilicone Valley coverage
8. Slashdot: News from around the world with focus on Linux and Open Souce
9. Unwired View: News pertaining to the wireless systems
10. TheRegister: UK views and opinions
11. Technologizer: Technology news
12. Techcrunch: Tech news
13. Slashgear: Covers the latest gadgets and technology trends
14. Silicon Alley Insider: Discusses start-ups and other technology business issues
15, Search Engine Land: Latest news about search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing.
16. Redmond Pie: Cover issues about latest iOS hacks for mobile devices
17. ReadWriteWeb: Delivers social media news
18. Pocket-Lint: Tech news site mainly about gadgets
19. Mashable: Tech news site
20. Lifehacker: Tech related “how to” articles
21. Inside Facebook: Pools ideas of social media experts
22. Intomobile: Mobile related news and issues
23. I4U: Information on latest gadgets and mobile devices
24. Google Mobile Blog: News about Android Platforms
25. Gizmodo: Coverage about consumer electronics
26. GigaOm: Focuses on VoID and broadband issues
27. Gadgetell: Technology news
28. Engadget: Breaking news in the world of technology
29. Electronista : Macintoch News
30. Droid Life: Droid phone, Apps, and reviews
31. Download Squad: Announces available downloads
32. Digitimes: Technology industry news world-wide
33. Digital Trends: News and reviews about new products
34. CrunchGear: Breaking news about cell phones, games, hardware and software issues and reviews.
35. Computer World: News about latest products and opinions
36. Boy Genius Report: Breaking news in technology industry
37. Ars Technica: Covers a wide variety of games and other technology news
38. Android-Apps: Android reviews and issues
39. Anand Tech: All about hardware
40. AllThingsDigital: Wall Street Journal Technology blog discussions and opinions
41. Technology Review: Product reviews
42. Enterprise Network: Network issues
43. Engadget: Gadget reviews
44. Boing Boing: Magazine about media issues
45. Wired: Non-wireless coverage
46. Wireless Network Setup
47. The Register: Tech Humor
48. Digg: Articles about different issues
49. Word of mouth advertising: Google Adsense
50. Network Subscription: Network subscriptions benefits
reference : http://techtalkasia.com/50-best-technology-websites.html/

Launch of Microsoft Office 365

The new Microsoft Office was being unveiled yesterday; Microsoft officially announced on its website its next-generation productivity suite. Firstly, it’s not going to be called Office 15 or Office 2013 – instead, Microsoft has decided to go with Office 365, with a newer logo to go with it. While not a huge departure from previous incarnations of Office, the latest version has a bunch of new features to make it go hand-in-hand with Windows 8. What sort of features, you ask? Namely – a touch-friendly UI.

Office 365 will let you work efficiently using your mouse, keyboard as well as your touchscreen. Seeing how it’s being developed with Windows 8 in mind (the first version of Windows designed with tablets in mind), this version of Office is touted to work well with all forms of input. Yes, even stylus support is mentioned. New apps such as OneNote and Lync are now included in the suite, and they also feature touch-friendly UIs.
For folks who are thinking of picking up a Windows RT tablet, you’ll be glad to know that Office Home and Student 2013 RT will be included on the tablet as well. Content is saved to SkyDrive for support (no more hassle of manually transferring files yourself), settings are saved in the cloud (work with the same settings on your home and office PC), and even Office itself is going to be accessible from the cloud with Office on Demand (subscription required).
Skype is now going to be part of Office, which will make communicating with your colleagues or friends much easier when working together on a project. The People Card feature will also make it easy to obtain information about your contacts from any app within Office itself. Office 365 is going to be available with three subscription services, each one offering additional tools and SkyDrive space depending on the package.
No word on pricing or an exact release date yet, but folks who can’t wait and want to try out Office 365 now, just head to Office.com to check out the customer preview (Windows 7 or Windows 8 required). Sounds like a pretty worthy update to the current version of Microsoft Office.

What impressed me on this version of office is the new application called Lync, the new Lync Digital Meetings tools let you interact with people through video, audio, and instant messaging, and to share content while meeting. Join a Lync meeting from an HTML5-based browser using the Lync Web App, and enjoy HD video, voice over IP, instant messaging, and sharing of desktops, applications, and PowerPoint presentations.