I very glad to announce, for all that didn’t know of course, that I’m getting happier everyday with Microsoft, because they are getting lighter and understanding what will be the future. It was and it will be a difficult path for them to cross but I think that it will worth it.

Another step was made by starting to not ignore enterprise 2.0 (and maybe other buzz 2.0). They first started to put SharePoint, SQL Server and BizTalk on the “Cloud”. Now, with Microsoft Office Labs they are building (testing the prototype) an internal Facebook-like social network that will be deployed with SharePoint plus office. SharePoint already have wikis and other social apps but it was not a true social Intranet and it wasn’t very used – at least in Portugal.

I know some cases that the organizations stopped buying Intranets and started to use “Facebooks” (a business model Platform as a Service) because more than 80% of their employees were using FaceBook. But the “Cloud” services have some handicaps and one of the biggest is security (can I trust on the Cloud?!?). Organizations are using FaceBook as an Intranet but the files are still staying on the shell (not in the Cloud). I think that is for now and Microsoft too! For the time being Microsoft will upgrade all (all that are possible) their products toward Software plus Services business model.

For internal marketing this “tool” will be great, because big organizations already understood that knowing their employees brings fantastic inputs to the chain of value and ultimately to the leadership and motivation field.

I promise to approach Software plus Services, Marketing 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, etc 2.0 more deeply soon!!!