Microsoft Talk

Microsoft Office Live Small Business

Glad to see Microsoft thinking of the little guys in business, the Small Business owners. With this shaky economy, they need all the help, hints and tips they can get.

In the interview, they talk about how companies can be more efficient, competetitive and better use of technology.

Microsoft feels having the best software for small businesses will help them compete for business, streamline their workflow and be more lean in these trying times. Here are some examples:

We recently heard that Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager helped MagicBus.com trim its invoice process from 2.5 hours to 5 minutes. That process is now 30 times faster. The Internet-based tech consulting firm Intellium and its five employees increased productivity by 20 percent and saved $50,000 by deploying virtual meeting software. And these examples keep rolling in.

Excerpted from the interview:

PressPass: What is an example of a new technology that shows promise for the SMB market?

Risse: My favorite example is virtualization technology. Today many companies run several servers, and each of those servers may be dedicated to running one application, one function, or one workload. Virtualization enables the consolidation those workloads into one physical server by creating multiple virtual images of an operating system, each running on its own.

By consolidating numerous environments into one physical box, you save power, you save air conditioning, you save IT cost because there’s only one machine to administer, and you save, of course, on the number of boxes you have to buy. This is a great example of how software saves a lot of real-world time and effort and makes the organization as a whole more efficient.

PressPass: What about making individuals more productive?

Risse: One of the key focus areas of business software across the board is maximizing the time spent on work that directly improves the bottom line. Familiar, easy-to-use business productivity software, such as Microsoft Office, is a key component there.

Today we’re building on those capabilities in a number of ways to help people work more effectively and reduce direct costs such as travel expenses and electricity. Videoconferencing and new collaboration tools are making virtual meetings much more like face-to-face interaction and enabling people to share and collaborate more effectively. Companies are also cutting computer energy usage by using online services, and are reducing IT management costs with infrastructure software.