Microsoft on the Issues Africa

Standing still is falling behind: a little insight into Windows XP End of Support

msafrica — Thu, 16 May 2013 11:22:00 GMT

By Kevin Connolly, Windows Business Group Manager for Microsoft Sub-Saharan Africa & Indian Ocean Islands

To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly. ~ Henri Bergson

The news has been out for a while but if you haven’t heard, take note. Microsoft is ending Windows XP support from April 8^th, 2014. This may sound scary, but moving onto a new operating system is a completely natural progression, and just like a car needs to be serviced and upgraded, so do computers. This is why Microsoft has a ten year Support Lifecycle Policy.

Windows XP was launched in October 2001. When I think back on the last 10 years, I realize just how much can change in a decade. In 2001, many of us were still using floppy disks, the very first Harry Potter film graced our screens; Africa’s Queen of pop, Brenda Fassie had just released her ‘Greatest Hits’ album, and flip phones were all the rage. Wikipedia had just launched, Facebook didn’t exist yet – and, Windows XP was the latest and greatest operating system on the market with a faster start-up time, a sleeker interface, and exciting new tools like Media Player and Movie Maker.

Over the last ten years, the floppy disk has become antiquated, seven Harry Potter movies have been box-office hits, Africa has mourned the loss of the Queen of African Pop, and flip phones have become a rarity. Wikipedia has replaced encyclopaedias, Facebook has become the most popular website in the world – and, people who are still using Windows XP are now missing out on the latest and greatest technology.

Just like pop culture, technology has changed drastically over the last decade. As an enabler, it responds to the changing needs of its users. It empowers people by saving them time, improving productivity and removing constraints– from geographical distance to language barriers. It makes what was previously impossible, possible. And the limit to what it can do is constantly expanding. When you start to think of technology like this, it becomes clear why using outdated forms of it cause you to fall behind.

So, relying on XP, which is now 11 years old, could mean you’re doing business at half the pace of everyone else, and coming up against obstacles no one else encounters
anymore. Because of its age, Windows XP also relies on the ongoing delivery of security-related patches to remain secure. When support ends, users will no longer receive new security updates and patches. With more sophisticated cyber threats emerging every day it’s critical that individuals and businesses have a modern OS to protect their data, customer and credit card information, and keep their IP safe!

With Windows 8 having just reached its 100 millionth license activation and over 60 000 Windows 8 apps available in the app store, there is no better opportunity to embrace newer and better
technologies than now! When it comes to the world of technology, standing still really is falling behind.

And, the good news for SMBs, is that if they register for Windows 8 Pro before 30 June, they’ll receive a 15% discount on Windows 8 Pro and Office Standard 2013

Getting Africa connected: Topics on the table at WEF

msafrica — Wed, 08 May 2013 07:11:00 GMT

Posted by Fernando de Sousa
General manager, Africa Initiatives at Microsoft

This week, Cape Town is hosting the World Economic Forum for Africa (WEF) and I’m lucky enough to be attending. The WEF covers almost 30 different topic areas that together hold the key to Africa’s continued and increased expansion and economic development. The potential for positive change is huge, which is why I’m so excited to be here and to meet likeminded people who have the ideas and energy to help Africa thrive in the digital age.

Microsoft’s 4Afrika Initiative is itself trying to achieve more for Africa (it’s in the name!). 4Afrika was launched in February with the aim of improving Africa’s global competitiveness through technology. Two of our stated goals are to make affordable smart devices available to Africa’s youth and to test unused TV broadcast radio frequencies (known as ‘white space’ frequencies) to increase Internet access in underserved areas. In February in Kenya, we launched Project Mawingu, our first white spaces project in Africa.

Today, I’m excited to announce another white spaces collaboration aimed at connecting African students and teachers and giving them the opportunity to engage in the global – and borderless – digital dialogue. In Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, we are working alongside the Tanzania Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH) and local internet service provider UhuruOne to get tens of thousands of university students and faculty members better connected by installing low-cost wireless broadband access at the University of Dar es Salaam, amongst others, and to provide affordable Windows devices and relevant services. [See press release for more information]

Projects like this are part of our overall 4Afrika strategy to engage in Africa’s development, address youth unemployment, help recent graduates develop skills for employability, and support the development of young software developers and entrepreneurs.

The three principal themes of this year’s WEF Africa are ‘Accelerating Economic Diversification’, ‘Boosting Strategic Infrastructure’ and ‘Unlocking Africa’s Talent’. We believe 4Afrika serves all three of these themes. Hyper-connectivity is vital to the economic and social development of the continent, and improving access through initiatives like 4Afrika will help achieve these critical goals.

We’re proud to say that Microsoft 4Afrika is gaining momentum. Since launch we’ve seen nearly 400 apps created by our AppFactory interns, and we’ve touched more than 1,100 developers through DevCamps in Kenya, Ghana, Rwanda and Tunisia alone. We’ve also trained around 1,100 partners and government leaders across 14 countries through our Afrika Academy. We’re just getting started, so we’re looking forward to the time here at WEF Africa this week to make sure that as a community, we are working together to pursue common goals and to accelerate African competitiveness and innovation.

Microsoft accelerates tech growth in Africa with Dev Camps

msafrica — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 09:30:00 GMT

Posted by Dele Akinsade
Developer Platforms Evangelism Lead, Sub-Saharan Africa and Indian Ocean Islands

Developers are crucial to Africa’s digital development. Without local developers to rely on, Africa would struggle to gain ground in an increasingly digital global economy. And, they are important to our ecosystem in Africa because we rely on them to make our offerings locally relevant. For example, when Windows 8 was launched worldwide last year, African developers seized the opportunity to create new apps to address Africa’s unique opportunities and challenges.

To support the development of a vibrant, strong developer community in Africa, we hold frequent Microsoft DEV Camps across the continent. They are not only a great opportunity for developers to learn from experts and network with each other, but also to have valuable hands-on time to practically apply what they have learnt to an IT problem. What’s more, they are completely free!

DEV Camps are an important part of our commitment to Africa. The Microsoft 4Afrika Initiative, launched in February 2013, is built on the belief that technology can accelerate growth for Africa, and that Africa can also accelerate technology for the world. We know that African developers not only have the potential to solve local challenges, but to solve global ones too, and this is why we’re increasing our investments even further in reaching out to African developers.

So don’t miss out on the opportunity to be part of Microsoft developers’ community by participating in one of the upcoming Microsoft DEV Camps in Africa, taking place in Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia and Kenya in 2013. If you are unable to attend any of the Camps, you can start perfecting your development skills through our array of online resources:

- DreamSpark provides students with software design and development tools at no charge.

- Microsoft Virtual Academy provides free online IT training & learning of Windows, Microsoft Technologies through courses designed by industry experts.

- Channel 9 keeps you up to date with videos from people behind the scenes building products at Microsoft.

- Microsoft Learning provides online computer training, and online computer certification for all Microsoft technology products, courses, and exams.

- BizSpark provides free software, support, visibility, and community to promising start-ups and visionary entrepreneurs.

For details on upcoming DEV Camps in your region, you can follow these Facebook pages and groups: Microsoft Africa; Africa Apps, Microsoft DPE WCA, DPE Nigeria, DPE Indian OceanIslands, and DPE East and Southern
Africa.

You can also follow @MicrosoftAfrica and @AfricaApps onTwitter.

Supporting Africa’s culture of innovation for a better tomorrow

msafrica — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 12:47:00 GMT

Posted by Robert Kayihura, Legal & Corporate Affairs, Microsoft

Today, we are celebrating World Intellectual Property Day, a global event that brings attention to the importance of intellectual property in encouraging innovation and creativity. This year’s theme is ‘Creativity: The Next Generation”.

This got me thinking –when we look at the next generation in Africa, what do we need to do to ensure they are able to be as creative as they possibly can be in solving future challenges?

Finding creativity in Africa certainly isn’t the challenge. Like anywhere in the world, people across the continent have been coming up with creative solutions to everyday challenges for centuries. People are naturally innovative and in Africa this is particularly evident when you look at the informal sector, where people have found extremely creative ways of making a living and addressing local needs and challenges.

New skills needed to use new tools

However, thanks to technology, there is far more potential to solve what were previously considered unsolvable problems. Think about all the breakthroughs we’ve seen in healthcare in the last decade. Yet, while information technology (IT) is more ubiquitous and continues to advance; the disconnect between the people who experience certain challenges and those that have the ability to solve them is widening. So while there may be an app for almost every purpose in the world; most people in Africa don’t own smartphones, and those that have challenges that could potentially be solved using IT also don’t have the means or in many cases the know-how to create relevant apps.

Local solutions to local challenges

This is why we are so passionate about supporting local developers, entrepreneurs and startups on the continent, and about ensuring the next generation has the skills and tools needed to empower themselves and contribute positively to society.

The realization of how important it is to support innovation in Africa is largely what has informed our recently launched 4Afrika Initiative. We started noticing through our work across the continent that a huge number of young people were really set on coming up with their own solutions to local challenges. While many of them succeeded without any help, these encouraging trends confirm what we’ve observed in other parts of the world – the most effective way to solve challenges in Africa, is to support the continent’s young people, aspiring entrepreneurs, and the regions small and midsize businesses by helping them access the devices and IT services they need to do the ‘problem-solving’. After all, this is a far more sustainable approach!

The missing ingredient

But there is one thing missing from this mix that is necessary to support a strong culture of innovation: a widespread understanding of the concept of intellectual property (IP), and a respect for the protection of ideas.

Last month in Tanzania African Ministers gathered to discuss the role of innovation as a driving force of social, economic, and environmental development. Countries that are highly innovative have greater development potential, and the protection of IP is central to ensuring the link between the two.

Recently I wrote about how important IP is to start-ups, and how strong IP legislation can really make all the difference when it comes to attracting investors. As I noted, inventions protected by patents are worth on average 200% more than unprotected inventions. For African entrepreneurs to have the chance to take their ideas to market and compete against global companies, they must have the assurance that all their hard work will not be stolen from them.

So this World IP Day, I urge you to consider the place innovation has in your life and in the future success of Africa – and to spread the word about how important it is for us to collectively support the culture of innovation that is already rooted in our history.

Intellectual Property: An Idea Worth Copying

msafrica — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 12:33:00 GMT

Posted by Robert Kayihura, Director of Legal & Corporate Affairs, West, East, Central Africa (WECA), Microsoft

Imagine you’re in charge of a multinational organization. Some of you may be already, but most of us aren’t that lucky (or unlucky, depending on your point of view). But imagine that you are the CEO of ‘You Corp’. You and your board want to expand your business into different countries and sell your product to new customers. What three things should you look for in order to ensure your business takes off?

First, you’re looking for demand. If your company is not offering something that customers want, you may need to rethink your plans. Let’s assume You Corp’s product is the best in its category and something a lot of consumers want to own.

Second, you need a supply chain. You’ll be importing your goods at first (maybe forever), and you need assurance that your new market or region has a transportation network and customs infrastructure that can support truck-loads of your product coming in and landing on store shelves in good time.

For some, the third factor may come as a surprise: make sure your intellectual property (IP) will be protected. IP is essential for business success, regardless of product or geography. IP protection safeguards four very important assets: patents (your inventions); trademarks (the symbols and other designs that distinguish your product or company); trade secrets (the confidential business intelligence that gives your company a competitive advantage); and copyrights (works of authorship that lead to successful books, films, music and other creative expressions).

‘But IP merely funnels riches to the already-rich!’

Not so. The protection of IP is as important to start-up companies as it is to large and wealthy multinational organizations. IP protection is what gives small and start-up ventures the confidence to compete against more established firms; it offers the assurance that their investment of time, effort and money will be protected and ultimately rewarded with the growth and success they deserve. In fact, when it comes to start-up companies, their entire value is often based on their IP, and attracting funding is dependent on how well that IP is protected. This makes IP a primary factor in attracting outside investment - and that, after all, is an important way to stimulate national and regional economies not just in Africa, but across the world.

The importance of IP to economic development

It is well established that inventions protected by patents are worth on average 200% more than unprotected inventions. This doesn’t just mean more profit, it means more start-up capital, new and high paying jobs and services, and the creation of new industries. In turn, this all leads to increased economic growth and development which ultimately benefits society as a whole.

At the end of the day, IP protection is about fair competition. With a fair and level playing field, talented individuals, as well as small and mid-sized companies across Africa, will not only compete successfully against wealthy and more established multi-national companies, they will create jobs, improve people’s lives and help transform the region.

Get behind African developers for Imagine Cup 2013

msafrica — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 19:13:00 GMT

Posted by Dele Akinsade
Developer Platforms Evangelism Lead, Sub-Saharan Africa and Indian Ocean Islands

It’s that time of the year again: the Microsoft Imagine Cup competition season is in full swing, with local finals taking place across the continent. The competition brings together student innovators from every corner of the globe to showcase their great ideas for new apps -- and this year the competition is stiffer than ever.

The winning prize pot is a life-changing USD $300,000 – enough to encourage any student developer to put their head down and do some serious coding! But, as clichéd as it might sound, winning isn’t everything at Imagine Cup. The experience of presenting to a panel of expert judges, taking your idea from concept to marketplace, networking with like-minded developers from across the world, and of course, all the fun that’s to be had – is a once in a lifetime, life-changing experience.

As always, I’m most excited to see what innovations come out of Africa, and which teams make it through to the Worldwide Finals in St. Petersburg, Russia this July. Last year, teams from Egypt and Algeria won awards and Team Cipher256 from Uganda won a Grant Award for WinSenga – a handheld device that can scan a pregnant woman’s womb to monitor baby movements and detect ectopic pregnancy or abnormal foetal heartbeats. This innovation addresses a local challenge in Uganda – lack of access to affordable antenatal care. But it also has the potential to be used in many countries in Africa, and other parts of the world. This is exactly the kind of ‘exchange’
that we referred to when we launched the 4Afrika Initiative, which is built on the belief that “technology can accelerate growth for Africa, and Africa can also accelerate technology for the world”. And while Team Cipher256 didn’t walk away with a prize at the finals, they received $50 000 through the Grant Award program, which is driven by Microsoft YouthSpark, an initiative that aims to help young people pursue an education, find employment, and foster entrepreneurship.

I urge all African students to envisage new ways of using technology to tackle the challenges that Africa – and the world- faces. You never know, next year you could be flown to an exciting location to be a part of the 2014 Worldwide Finals! And don’t forget to stay tuned to the Microsoft Africa Facebook page and @MicrosoftAfrica Twitter handle for updates on the African teams competing at this year’s
competition.

African women: breaking down the barriers of entry to the tech industry

msafrica — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 10:26:00 GMT

Posted by Djam Bakhshandegi
Corporate Citizenship and Partners in Learning West East Central Africa & Indian Ocean Islands

Empowering women through education and technology is essential to the economic development of any country. In Africa, the gap between the educated population and the one that has never had the opportunity to go to school is even bigger than in other parts of the world; a difference that is exacerbated when we look at the statistics solely for the female population. Moreover, access to technology in Africa has been limited to the rich for years – a trend that is now starting to change.

When it comes to education in Africa, there is still much room for improvement. According to the United Nations, it is estimated that more than 40 per cent of women in Africa do not have access to basic education. However, the encouragement of African women to chase education in the technology sector has increased in the last years and is opening greater possibilities of bridging the gap between those who have access to opportunities and those who don’t.

Considering technology as an important factor for the achievement of growth in Africa, there is a general awareness in the continent that women need to be educated in this field. In this sense, the UNESCO report Science, Technology and Gender identifies that the number of women employed in the scientific and tech industries is increasing in several African countries.

Numerous organisations and foundations are starting new initiatives in Africa with the aim of improving life for women, and contributing to the development of the continent through technology and science. Microsoft is supporting this through its DigiGirlz programme, which is designed to give high-school girls the opportunity to learn about careers in technology, connect with Microsoft employees, and participate in hands-on computer and technology workshops. Every year, the DigiGirlz programme reaches over 500 young high-school girls across the continent. Often, these sessions signal new opportunities awakening in the young women’s minds. They are able to see, hear, and understand what education and technology has brought to others and what it can potentially bring to them. And, we also recently launched Aspire Women, the official name of the female empowerment portal first disclosed as part of the Microsoft 4Afrika Initiative launch in February 2013. It is an official collaboration between Microsoft Egypt, the 4Afrika Initiative and YouthSpark and is designed to empower young women to play a leadership role in their communities, build their skills and self-esteem, and introduce new models for self-employment.

If you’d like to learn more, please explore the links above and follow us on Facebook and Twitter for updates.

Office 365 Home Premium Giveaway

msafrica — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 10:24:00 GMT

By: Marc Israel, Office Division Group Lead for Microsoft West, East and Central Africa and Indian Ocean Islands

To celebrate the availability of Office 2013 in Microsoft West, East, Central Africa and Indian Ocean Islands, Microsoft is giving away 12-month Office 365 Home Premium subscriptions.

Office 365 Home Premium, one of the offerings within Office 2013, is a cloud service designed for busy households and people juggling ever-increasing work and family responsibilities. The new offering includes the latest and most complete set of Office applications; works across up to five devices, including Windows tablets, PCs and Macs; and comes with extra SkyDrive storage and Skype calling — all for US$79.00 for an annual subscription, the equivalent of less than US$7.00 per month.

To enter, simply follow @MicrosoftAfrica on Twitter, tell us what you can buy for $7 per month and stand to win a 12-month license key for Microsoft’s #Office365 Home Premium – Office for your whole household, across the devices you love.

Terms and conditions below.

Terms and Conditions

By participating in our Twitter Competition, you fully agree and accept the Microsoft Office 365 Home Premium Competition Terms and Conditions ("Terms and Conditions") and you agree to be bound by them. You also agree to abide by the terms and conditions of any third party website or service where the competition is hosted, if any. In these Terms and Conditions, "Microsoft", "we", "our", and "us" refer to Microsoft Nigeria Limited. "You," "yourself" refers to an eligible Twitter competition entrant. “The Promoter” is Microsoft Nigeria Limited, For the purposes hereof, “Territory” shall mean: Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Djibouti , Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, French Polynesia, Gabon, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritius, Mayotte, Mozambique, Namibia, New Caledonia, Niger, Nigeria, Reunion, Rwanda, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, St. Helena, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe

The Competition is only open to Twitter users aged 18 years and over, residing in the Territory.
Prize will be distributed via email in a non-editable Microsoft document.
The Competition starts on Monday 25^th of March 2013 and closes at 12:00 GMT +2 on Friday 19^th April 2013. Entries received outside of the Promotional Period will not be considered.
To enter the Competition, entrants must have access to a computer, the internet and have a Twitter account.
The prize is 1 of 35 Office 365 Home Premium license keys
To enter, entrants must follow @MicrosoftAfrica and tweet what they can purchase for $7 to @MicrosoftAfrica using the #Office365 hash tag. The entrants should re-tweet “@MicrosoftAfrica For $7 I can buy........ #Office365. Terms and Conditions http://bit.ly/YzzyNv”.
Winners will be drawn at random from all complete Tweets & followers logged during the promotional period. No purchase necessary. Entries are only valid if the entry is completed correctly in accordance with these Terms and Conditions.
Only 1 entry per person.
This competition is not open to employees of Microsoft, their families or agencies.
You hereby grant Microsoft Corporation and its affiliates the right to publish your twitter username in online and offline media for this Competition, in the event you are a winner.
The winners will be notified by Twitter Direct Message within 48 hours of the Competition closing date.
In order to receive their prize, the winners are required to provide Microsoft with their full name and email address. Should a winner not acknowledge receipt of their win, and provide their full name and email address, within 7 days of receiving notice from Microsoft that they have won a prize, we reserve the right to redraw or not fulfill the prize.
The prizes will be sent out within 7 days of the winners notifying Microsoft of their full name and email address pursuant to clause 14 and 15 of these Terms and Conditions.
If you accept a prize, you will be solely responsible for all applicable taxes related to accepting the prize, if any;
The Promoter will not be liable for any delays in the receipt of entries. The Promoter does not accept responsibility for entries which are not received or delivered.
In the event the Promoter believes that an entry contravenes these Terms and Conditions, it reserves all rights to delete the entry at its absolute and sole discretion.
The prizes are non-transferable and cannot be substituted with a cash alternative.
The prize draw decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into. In the event of a dispute, the Promoter’s decision shall be final in all respects on all entrants. The Promoter reserves the right to amend, modify, cancel or withdraw this Prize Draw and to amend these Terms and Conditions at any time without notice. The Promoter cannot guarantee the performance of any third party and shall not be liable for any act or default by a third
party.
These Terms and Conditions shall be governed by the laws of Nigeria and shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Nigerian courts.
AMENDMENT To the extent permitted by applicable law, the Promoter reserves the right to amend these Terms and Conditions at any time. If cheating, a virus, bug, catastrophic event, or any other unforeseen or unexpected event that cannot be reasonably anticipated or controlled, (also referred to as force majeure) affects the fairness and /or integrity of this Competition, we reserve the right to cancel, change or suspend this Competition. This right is reserved whether the event is due to human or technical error. If a solution cannot be found to restore the integrity of the Competition, we reserve the right to select winners from among all eligible entries received before we had to cancel, change or suspend the Competition. If you attempt to compromise the integrity or the legitimate operation of this Competition by hacking or by cheating or committing fraud in ANY way, we may seek compensation from you for any losses that we incur as a result of your actions to the fullest extent permitted by law. Further, we may ban you from participating in any of our future Competitions, so please play fairly.
LIABILITY Microsoft cannot guarantee the performance of any third party and shall not be liable for any act or default by a third party. Participants in this Competition agree that Microsoft will have no liability whatsoever for any injuries, losses, costs, damage or disappointment of any kind resulting in whole or in part, directly or indirectly from acceptance, misuse or use of a prize, or from participation in this Competition. The foregoing shall apply in the event your data is not received or lost by Microsoft. Nothing in this clause shall limit Microsoft’s liability in respect of death or personal injury arising out of its own negligence or arising out of fraud. The provisions of this Section shall apply to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law
DATA Any personal data relating to entrants will be used solely in accordance with current data protection legislation applicable in your country of residence and in the country where the data controller is located. Entrants to the Competition will not be added to any database list. They will however be contacted on the email address or phone number supplied to be advised if they were successful. Microsoft’s Privacy Statement located at http://www.microsoft.com/privacystatement/en-us/core/default.aspx will apply to this Prize Draw and to all information that we receive from your entry. Please read the Privacy Statement before accepting these Terms and
Conditions and submitting your entry. Please note that by accepting these Terms and Conditions you are also accepting the terms of the Privacy Statement.

Partnering to accelerate innovation in East Africa

msafrica — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 21:07:00 GMT

Posted by Fernando De Sousa, general manager, Africa Initiatives at Microsoft

Over the last few years, the East African ICT industry has experienced explosive development and has seen the growth of a thriving developer community. It is also home to the renowned ‘iHub’ – an open space made available for technologists, investors, and tech companies in Kenya. One of iHub’s initiatives, m:lab aims to be a leader in identifying, nurturing and helping to build sustainable enterprises in the knowledge economy. I believe that these kinds of inspiring collaborative projects are incredibly effective in kick-starting the momentum needed for emerging local economies to take off and become globally competitive. And that’s why I’m so excited about the announcement we made today at the Innovation Africa Digital Summit in Ethiopia: Microsoft will be collaborating with iHub and m:lab to help fuel African innovation.

Towards a common vision

Self-starters, creative thinkers and entrepreneurs are vital to the progress of developing economies. If you’ve been keeping abreast our activities in Africa, you’ll know how invested we are in supporting developers and aspiring entrepreneurs with the tools and opportunities they need to reach their full potential. Last month, we launched the 4Afrika Initiative, focused on accelerating adoption of smart-devices, empowering small- and medium-sized businesses, and raising skills development to ignite African innovation for the continent and for the world. Our strategic cooperation with iHub and m:lab is a new example of one of the many ways we are going to achieve this.

Our involvement

Our collaboration with iHub and m:lab will see the start-up community benefit from our global BizSpark programme, and see us partner on events, research, and consulting projects. We’ll also be establishing a physical presence at iHub, making Microsoft devices like Windows Phones and Windows slates available for testing application and software. Developers hold the key to bringing our technologies ‘to life’ in Africa by making them locally relevant, and there’s no better way to ensure we are supporting them than by talking to and listening to them in person in the places they like to be.

For more information, see the official press release, and follow us on Facebook and Twitter for updates.

The new Office – helping you save time for the important things in life

msafrica — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 07:01:00 GMT

By: Marc Israel, Office Division Group Lead for Microsoft West, East and Central Africa and Indian Ocean Islands

Life is getting busier and people are continuously looking for a way to get more out of the time they have at their disposal.

The availability of Office 2013 is a step in that direction. Office 2013 makes the end user more productive in both a work and home environment. With Office you can continue working offline, while the integration with cloud technologies allows you to sync your documents seamlessly allowing you to be far more productive.

Office 365 Home Premium, one of the offerings within Office 2013, is a cloud service designed for busy households and people juggling ever-increasing work and family responsibilities. In a recent global survey,¹ nearly 60 percent of people said they don’t have the time to do the things they want to do, and more than 80 percent said they could save one or more hours a day if they were better organized. Office 365 Home Premium is designed to help people be more productive from virtually anywhere and find the flexibility to do the things they want.

To help people find more time to do the things they want, we are introducing Time to 365 (http://www.office.com/timeto365), a new crowd-sourced website where people can find and share tips, tricks, ideas and inspiration from around the world. Contributors include experts such as “techorating” pro Janna Robinson (http://www.jannarobinson.com) and everyday working parents who have found ways to simplify their lives. Tips on the site include, for example,
an idea for organizing your grocery list with OneNote on your phone, a pointer on how to pick the right-sized TV for your living room, and ways to use Office applications to help plan a child’s birthday party.

What are the top 10 features of the new Office, you may ask?

If you are reading, not writing or editing, click or tap View, then Read Mode in Word to hide the writing tools and menus.
Re-open a document or presentation, and keep reading right where you left off with Resume reading in Word and PowerPoint.
Like a data assistant that finishes your work for you, Flash Fill in Excel detects what you want to do and enters the rest of your data in one fell swoop, following patterns in your data.
Dress up your data with conditional formatting such as bars and color scales through the Quick Analysis Lens in Excel.
Tired of trying to precisely match the colors of shapes and pictures in PowerPoint? Let Eyedropper in PowerPoint do the work for you.
With an improved Presenter View in PowerPoint, the audience views your slides on a main screen, while you control the show on another screen that only you can see.
Inline replies in Outlook allow you to reply with one click by typing your response right in the Reading Pane.
Grab a quick glance at your schedule, an appointment or your to-do list with peeks in Outlook, without having to switch from email to calendar or other modes.
If the sound of typing is distracting, you can handwrite notes in OneNote instead of typing them. This is also useful if you’re faster at writing than at typing.
Instead of re-typing information or relying on links to documents, feel free to embed files in OneNote to keep them handy online or offline.

And a bonus one:

Seamlessly integrated with SkyDrive, you can save your Office documents to the cloud in one click, or work offline with your synchronized documents on your computer. A great way to keep your documents secured, while allowing you to stay productive when Internet is not available.

Note:

¹ Microsoft surveyed more than 10,000 people in over 20 countries.