Microsoft bus makes stops in the Mat-Su

WASILLA -- Did you miss the bus?

The Microsoft Across America bus made stops in the Valley last week and will be at the Great Alaska Sportsman's Show in Anchorage over the weekend as part of a promotion hatched by staff at Anchorage-based Mikunda Cottrell Information Technology.

Steve Dike and Dave Bailey of Mikunda Cottrell were at the Wasilla Chamber of Commerce last week, along with Shawn Fuller of TekMate, Inc., a computer services company with offices in Anchorage and Wasilla. The group gave tours of the bus at the chamber and stopped at other locations around the Valley. Dike said the bus idea originated from an attempt to find new ways to help small business owners and others who generally don't have or take time to research new technology to understand more about software that's on the market and how it may apply to their business. It's generated more spontaneous questions, he said, than setting up a booth at a trade fair, for example.

"We can go park anywhere, and people are just going to be streaming into this bus," Dike said. And sure enough, in the course of Dike's brief interview, a man drove up next to the bus and boarded, asking what the bus was all about.

Dike said when he and others in the bus visited Hunter Plaza, a mall near Nye Frontier Ford, earlier Wednesday, nearly every store-owner took time to board the bus and ask questions about the programs and services displayed. Several walked away with free copies of trial programs such as MapPoint, a program typically used for vacation planning, but which contains a lot of detailed demographic information and census data that could help a small business focus on its target market. Others gathered more information about some of Microsoft's point-of-sale software, while others asked questions about setting up a small business server that would link four or five computers together.

Many of those who boarded the bus listed contact information, and Dike said that information will come in handy after the bus is packed up and shipped to Seattle next week. Mikunda Cottrell staff will visit the small businesses to help them understand how to make the most use of the programs they have. Jill Harter, with TekMate, said that company is using the venture as a sort of launching point; Fuller, TekMate's president, recently opened a Wasilla office after seeing a gap in computer services in the growing Valley. If Valley businesses want computer service currently, most licensed service companies are in Anchorage -- and they generally charge travel time for their work, Harter said.

Although the bus is being shipped out of Alaska Tuesday, to begin a tour of the Western United States, Dike said the bus may be back in Alaska in the fall -- or Mikunda may develop a traveling bus of its own.

"Just from what I've seen, we could have people full-time doing this and generating new business opportunities," Dike said.

Those who didn't get a chance to visit the bus can find out more about the programs Microsoft has available for small businesses at www.connct-ms.com/mstps/default.asp.