Mobile Phone Banking System in Kenya

Here is an interesting article that is an excellent example of innovating from the bottom of the pyramid. In Kenya, people are using mobile phones as a banking system. In less than four years, the system has more than 13 million users and 23,000 agents.

If you’re tired of reading, you can also just listen to the story.

http://www.wbur.org/npr/132679772/mobile-money-revolution-aids-kenyas-poor-economy

Microsoft CEO Says Windows Phone 7 Gets 100+ Apps Each Day

http://mashable.com/2011/01/05/windows-phone-7-ces/

As we've seen in the Morgan Stanley Internet Trends presentation, Microsoft has yet to be a player in the Mobile App space despite their monoply in the desktop with Window OS and their Office application. With the launch of Windows 7 Mobile OS phones in the last couple of months, Microsoft is saying that more than 100 apps are being added each day to the platform. Considering the built-in base of desktop application developers already in Microsoft's stable, it would seem that applications will more quickly be developed for the Windows 7 Mobile OS platform than they did for the other mobile platforms (iOS, Android, etc.).

Although Microsoft is late to the smartphone OS party, they are not going away anytime soon. They have too much to lose and as is the custom at Microsoft, they will use their huge cash pile to make themselves relevant again... just look at Bing.