After forking out the carriers’ revenue, Skype has launched a business solution for the small entrepreneurs. Skype in the workspace (SITW) will help small businesses to market their products and services and build stronger connections. “Given the number of small companies that use Skype as a communications tool and the number of people that use Skype — more than 280 million connected users per month — the company may be on to something,” said Heather Clancy in ZDnet. Companies can post invitations on SITW to potential customers and partners interested in learning more about their business via Skype sessions. “Users can also share their SITW actions on their Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter accounts,” according to PC World.
UN ESCAP hosted a whole week of events for the Asia Pacific business community in Bangkok last week. LIRNEasia was invited to speak on how ICTs can benefit small business. I focused on micro-enterprises of the type we see in our work, exemplified by Zayed Khan, the young grocer from Sonargoan so well profiled by our qualitative research partner CKS. There was the usual tendency to extrapolate from the personal experiences of speakers to the entirety of the Asia Pacific, but hopefully LIRNEasia’s research-based presentation provided a needed counterweight. The slides are here.