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Russ: This is The BusinessMakers Show, heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com. And now it's time for the Aflac BusinessMakers Flashback, brought to you by Aflac, ask about it at work. And earlier this week Microsoft came to our hometown, Houston, Texas to announce a significant grant targeted to bring computer literacy services to under-served communities....bridging the digital gap.... So, I was able to capture some time with them to discuss the grant and other subjects of interest, like the challenges from Google Docs..... Here's how the conversation started: As you all know, The BusinessMakers loves to champion entrepreneurship, and when it comes to social entrepreneurship and nonprofits, we love to show how successful commercial entrepreneurship really, really can make an impact there. And we all know that there's not a better success story in that area than Microsoft Corporation. And I am very pleased to have as my guest Jennifer Heard, Central Regional U.S. Vice President with Microsoft Corporation. Jennifer, welcome to The BusinessMakers Show.
Jennifer: Thank you.
Russ: And also Gail Thomas-Flynn, General Manager, State and Local Government, Microsoft. Gail, welcome to The BusinessMakers Show.
Gail: Thank you very much.
Russ: Okay. Well, let's start, Jennifer, by you telling us about why you're meeting here today in Houston, Texas.
Jennifer: Well, we're here today for a great opportunity to launch the We Can initiative. That was the opportunity to connect with underserved communities and really help with digital literacy across the great city of Houston.
Russ: That's just such a worthy case. Kind of filling in the gap of the digital divide, I assume, is a huge part of the initiative of Microsoft in general.
Jennifer: Yes, it is, and we're really thrilled to have the opportunity to partner with the City of Houston and work with the Houston Public Library to find a way to fund the initiative by bringing one of the largest grants we've done in the amount of 4.5 million dollars.
Russ: Okay. Well, give us a little bit of detail about that 4.5 million dollars.
Jennifer: So the 4.5 really is 200,000 dollars in cash over the next several years along with software, curriculum and tools to enable the public library to connect and educate the students and underserved communities as well as people without work; trying to help them rebuilt their skills and increase their digital literacy so they can enter the workforce, especially during these challenging economic times. There's no better time to do it than today.
Russ: Absolutely. So, Gail, tell me a little bit about the curriculum and the software that you guys are donating.
Gail: And just want to underscore one of the points that Jennifer made is that by the year 2014, there's a statistic that's showing that 75 percent of jobs in the U.S. market here will require some amount of digital literacy, so the digital curriculum that we make available provides everything from basic computer skills-how to use the internet-to basically using, as well, word processing and spreadsheets; so all of the types of skills that'll be required for pretty much every job in the United States going forward.
Russ: Okay. Now just so our listeners and myself understand this a little bit better, this contribution actually comes from Microsoft, not from the Bill Gates charitable foundation.
Gail: That is correct. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is a separate entity outside of Microsoft, so this cash and curriculum donation comes directly from the Microsoft Corporation.
Russ: Okay. Has Microsoft been giving donations similar to this around the country, specifically targeted at filling in the gap in the digital divide?
Gail: Absolutely. Digital inclusion and digital access as well as workforce development as Jennifer said, especially in these tough economic times. That has always been a focus of our corporation with our programs like the Unlimited Potential. And we make available-we have a tremendous website on our citizenship website for Unlimited Potential that provides all kinds of programs that can be taken advantage of across the U.S. by many cities.
Russ: Now, since you're both Microsoft employees, I assume that you spend part of your time on these sort of charitable causes but most of the time is general commercial operations promoting Microsoft and Microsoft products.
Jennifer: That is correct. And the team that I work with is responsible for supporting our small and mid-market customers, and we're all about trying to enable them and enable their business to grow, especially during these times, bringing them software and solutions that differentiate their business value to the communities.
Russ: It's so interesting to watch the way that Microsoft reacts to the market. I remember Microsoft being a little bit late to the web back quite a few years ago. And now suddenly there's this big challenger named Google that seems to be getting into the space that's Microsoft space. So do you spend time now, Jennifer, equipping your sales force with ways to compete against the new emerging Google desktop applications?
Jennifer: There are always competitors in this world of technology which is a great thing for everyone. We do compete hard. We have great offerings as well, and Google is a great competitor of ours, but we also look at that as an opportunity to continue to drive more value, drive lower cost; and I think that the people that we're serving is the one that benefits from most of that innovation.
Russ: And I know you, Gail, focus on state and local government. Do you run into some of the same competitive challenges that Jennifer runs into in the commercial market?
Jennifer: Of course. We run into the same competitors in the state and local government market as in the commercial market as well. Microsoft is very, very committed to state and local government customers. We, in fact, have developed, and in conjunction with many of our partners, vertical solutions that address the unique needs of state and local government, so a corporation, we're very much committed to delivering vertical solutions for state and local government in the areas of health and human services, justice and public safety; and the list goes on and on. So-and as a corporation Microsoft is-all of our offerings are going to be available to customers. This is our unique differentiation relative to some of the competitors you mentioned. We make available our software that customers can use either on their own premises or in the cloud, which is up in the web, or any combination thereof, and that's our unique value proposition is any way that our customers want to consume and be provision their software is how Microsoft can deliver it to customers.
Russ: Sounds nice. Okay, Jennifer, let's picture the audience. We do have a lot of small and medium size businesses out there. What's a cool new Microsoft product that's coming out or that's already out and underutilized for the small and medium size business today?
Jennifer: I'll hit on-there's one that I'm really excited about, and we talked about the cloud and talked about the competition and talked about choice. For a small business to get online with some of the sophisticated tools that usually the enterprise side of customers would only be able to afford, we call this the Business Productivity Online Suite. And this is available today, and we're able to bring this to our small customers and they can pilot it today. They can get online with email, online with collaboration tools and online with calendaring and all the other tools that run a business and makes a business more successful. These things are available, and we really encourage small businesses to take a look at our Business Productivity Online Suite to consider moving their business forward.
Russ: Okay, Jennifer, I really appreciate you sharing some time and you as well, Gail. And thanks a lot for the contributions that you make to the community.
Jennifer: Thank you for the opportunity.
Gail: Thanks very much.
Russ: And that wraps up this mornings Aflac BusinessMakers Flashback, brought to you by Aflac as about it at work. And now its time for Tech Talk with The Planet, so let's welcome Kevin Hazard.
[Tech Talk with The Planet]
Russ: You're listening to The Business Makers Show, heard here and online at The BusinessMakers.com