Me On TV and Bar-Deli at the TIE Nordic - SSE Open Mike event for startups Stockholm

I attended the TIE Nordic event (http://nordic.tie.org/) organized by Hannes Dernehl jointly hosted by SSE organized by Bhavik (http://swedishstartups.ning.com/profile/NordicEntrepreneursNetwork) at the Hub (http://stockholm.the-hub.net/) in Stockholm on May 31.

Neev Technologies Nordic AB (http://www.neevtech.com) is a member of TIE Nordic. Contact tlidforss at neevtech.com for more info about IT outsourcing services provided.



Jeffrey Cole from Ericsson was there presenting the new service Me On TV where the general idea is to encourage businesses to start using user generated content (UGC) for product development and customer services by providing tools to make it as easy as possible for users to record, edit and mix info to be used using their mobile phones. See the Youtube video below for more details.

These events are covered by Open Entrepreneurship (http://www.openentrepreneurship.com/), Björn Paulsson the TIE Nordic Chapter Manager video records and posts on their site. I can recommend registering and signing up at this site if you are interesting in the start up business areas.

One interesting start-up presenting during the "Open Mike" session (where anybody can grab the microfone and present something) was Bar-Deli. See http://www.bar-deli.se/ for more info. The entire business case is very simple, go to any bar in hotels, pubs, restaurants in any city or country
and ask what snacks you can get. The answer in most cases is nothing put peanuts. So, as a result bar-deli packages, sells and delivers custom snacks that are different and healthier. I talked to Niclas Johansson the founder, you can contact him at niclas at bar-deli.se.


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Projectplace - Collaboration around your projects in the cloud

Here's an overdue post about the growing popularity of cloud services. Projectplace sponsored in cooperation with SalesForce an event to highlight the status of project and collaboration services.

Niklas Zandelin, CEO, Exido talked about enablers such as service buses and a core focus on cloud services allowing processes between all actors. Cloud SLA documents are also now available within the EU and US markets. And recent trends with CFOs who all want to see no CAPex and only modest OPex.

Johan Zetterstrom VP Nordics, SalesForce.com presented the growth and history of SalesForce. He emphasized that at Salesforce you pay per user not apps used. Projectplace is a salesforce app on the app platform.

The scope of SalesForce with their AppForce;
- 125k apps on app platform.
- Service cloud with 6k customer.
The first 100 developers can develop for free first app.

Magnus Ingvarsson, Magnus.Ingvarsson at projectplace.se, Founder of Projectplace.

Projectplace after 2008
- 105 employees
- 129 MSEK revenue
- 18 MSEK ebit result

Magnus illiustrated how Projectplace sees cloud services vs. their project services;

PaaS (Platform as a service) is a vertical one addressing the app layer scope
IaaS (Infrastructure as a service) is the horizontal infrastructure layer
Integration as a service is the vertical management layer
Apps are of course the apps on the PaaS layer
UI
SaaS (Software as a Service) is what the users see and use

There are as he pointed out, of course a certain way of getting sold on a certain architecture. Each one of the major cloud services architectures has their own way of interworking between apps, similar but still slightly different meaning that once you have chosen an environment to use, you have work to do if you would like to change later.

Projectplace also sess a role for their project cloud services as a good fit for BPO services where you have a need for local and remote project management and that you should when you consider cloud services, see the whole picture from on premises, host outsource, cloud and SaaS.

Would you like to get the best IT project deals? Contact me asap! http://tinyurl.com/yjgqmxo

The MJ Launcher part2 - Transforming Your Mobile Experience see updated info in previous post

I just updated the MJ Launcher posting, see previous post http://tlidforss.blogspot.com/2009/10/mjetzappgif.html or go and check out, http://mjetz.com from your mobile phone browser.

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Epicor 9 - Product launch event at Nalen, Stockholm

I attended the product launch event of Epicor's latest, Epicor 9. For those of you who do not know Epicor; Epicor is a world-wide developer and distributor of ERP systems. Epicor has more than 2800 customers in 143 countries. Epicor is a Microsoft Gold Partner. See http://www.epicor.com for company details.

Stefan Westelius, swestelius at epicor.com, partner evangelist at Epicor Sweden introduced the launch event.

The theme for the event was Protect, Extend and Converge. The goal; protect existing iScala customer base and installations while allowing a kind of "best of breed" set of service extensions to be made available and the option of converging into one system with the new Epicor 9 release.

Protect

iScala - The ERP

Some interesting notes around new release, support for the following areas:

SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) is an EU payment standards initiative. The EPC (European Payments Council) develops the framework needed to implement the Single Euro Payments Area. See
www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu for details.

Svefaktura is a Swedish standard for electronic invoicing. See information from SFTI steering group for details, http://www.svefaktura.se

SAF-T (Standard Audit File for Tax Purposes) support. See http://www.oecd.org/.../0,2340,en_2649_33749_34910329_1_1_1_1,00.html for guidance information.

Epicor has an interesting way of supporting old products as long as customers buy maintenance services without forcing customers to upgrade to new releases.

Extend

The "extend concept" allows for ala carte type set of selecting your most wanted applications for your business. One good example demoed was Storefront, the e-commerce site service. I really like the way Epicor does a demo, you integrate your powerpoints with hotlinks to iScala and log in to the live service. This provides an excellent view of what you are presenting and what the application does for your business.

Storefront your one stop shop for e-commerce sites that can be used as a complement to your existing website or also as a tool for creating your business site.

Converge

With the new Epicor 9, in addition to the integration of different products into one system, comes new front ends. You do not have to be used any longer to find information the "traditional way" with a client application looking through tables and forms. Now, you can just search, like the "Google generation", just search and you will find the answer. The new release comes with search integration and information presented with hotlinks and relevance count, so you can find an answer to any question you may have. I like the format, very blog label inspired.

Since I had to leave for a conference call, I missed the afternoon part with the tech details but I have to say thank you to the Epicor people for an excellent setup and arrangements. I understand why SAP is watching what Epicor does...

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Update on Windows Mobile Marketplace launch event in Stockholm

Windows Marketplace for Mobile Developer Registration Walk Through

View more presentations from Mike Francis.

Here's an update on an event I attended early summer. For those of you that missed the presentations, Per Ahlberg Developer Evangelist Microsoft has made the presentations available om his MDSN blog, http://tinyurl.com/kr9m8h

Johan Huss Mobile Solutions Specialist Microsoft presented Windows Mobile 6.5 that will be available on Oct. 7 in Sweden. Among the features, a "thumb" friendly touch friendly UI with good support for widgets. I tested the new UI features on an HTC Touch and Samsung Omnia and works very well for touch operation.

In addition to "touch" being a big thing with launch of Windows Mobile 6.5, MyPhone is a new convenient service where you as a user can sync and manage your phones data on the web. Works very well for managing contact data and syncing with your phone. This service works for older phones also, you do not have to wait for 6.5 to start using it. See for further details,
http://myphone.microsoft.com

Philippe Goldstein, Microsoft France presented the launch of Windows Mobile Marketplace.

Some comments;

• No Java or scripts allowed in marketplace
• Native code, managed code and widgets allowed
• 3-4 weeks for application certification
• Cost 99 USD for 1st year for 5 apps thereafte per app
• Revenue sharing, developer gets 70%, Microsoft (and partners) 30%

See for more information the Windows Mobile blog;
http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windowsphone/default.aspx

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What to do about Plaxo - Nuke it or?

Plaxo is I think a sad story, it started as an ambitious service for all office outlook users as a way to synch your business contacts back in 2002 if I remember correctly. Then once the social networking services hype got up to speed, Plaxo became a social networking site with a lot of promise. But with limitations, lack of access to info, screwed up (I think) user interface, and very little has happened even after Comcast acquired Plaxo, I see no future in using Plaxo, I think it is a service that is also rude to users;

Why should I as a user receive hundreds of invitations to get connected by people and I cannot view them (get the warning too many requests, you are too close to the limit 1000, please remove some so you can accept...) but on top of that Plaxo suggests I should connect since there are 5100+ people that I according to Plaxo know. There is no logic to it... to me it seems like if I have too many connections, It should not even be possible for other users to send me a request to connect, they should simply get a message that I have reached Plaxo's limit and that is it!

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Embedded browser in Net TV by Philips

In case you have not noticed, TV sets are changing. I attended a while ago an event in Kista, Stockholm sponsored by Philips and their new Net TV division. The presenters were;

• Åke Johansson, ake.johansson at philips.com head of Philips consumer area and Net TV champion.
• Tomas Hedqvist, tomas.hedqvist at m-one.se, consult in digital media and service acqusition partner for Philips in the Nordic region, http://www.m-one.se/
• Fredrik Andersson, co-founder Net Tv service from Accedo Broadband, http://www.accedobroadband.com/
• Anna Caracolis, CEO of Adimo, mobile consulting services, http://www.adimo.com/, Anna presented practical opinions and results from porting designs from a 3" mobile phone screen to a 42" TV was not difficult.

Some facts about Net TV;

• Standard used is CE html
• Windows media and H264 supported but no Adobe flash yet
• Optimized for 720 by 1080 format
• Remote control controlled and operated
• Fonts and readability important when designing web services for Net TV
• Forecast says about 180M TV sets will be CE html enabled by 2012

The demo TVs used regular 16:9 HD TV sets but Philips also used the opportunity to showcase the new 21:9 see also http://www.consumer.philips.com/c/cinema-21-9/30849/cat/gb/

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Get your facts about who are your different social media users

Social Media Strategy presentation from Globalization Strategies LLC visualized by the wizards at http://vizedu.com Interesting classification and stats on how you divide your users into different categories. Enjoy the presentation above.

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Excitera Enterprise Forum Event in Stockholm on Mar 12

The organization Excitera Enterprise Forum held an event last week for entrepreneurs and students who would like to become new ones. This event took place at Naringslivets Hus in Stockholm.

Nicklas Mattsson, chief editor for the magazine, Entreprenör was the moderator for the event.

Elby Kwok Drewsen was the first speaker. She is the founder and owner of Lotus Travel. Lotus does specialize in organizing travel from Sweden to China. She described her long road to success, having to learn many different roles on her way to her focused niche business. Lotus Travel also has a sister company, Scandinavian Perspectives focusing on the opposite, travel from China to Sweden.

Ola Ahlvarsson, the founder of Result was up next, since this was the second time I listened to the same presentation, I put more attention to his laptop computer. Ola earlier in the day, this presenation at the Sun Nordic Software Roadshow event. This time though, he got computer problems, seeing that his machine was still running Windows 2000, I think he need to get a new laptop... anyway, always entertaining.

Pontus Lindwall finished the evening presenting his experiences from the gambling and entertainment services company, Betsson. Pontus realized early, already back in 1996 that internet gambling was going to be big. He founded Net Entertainment that later got acquired by his previous employer, Cherry where Pontus became CEO. Cherry later acquired Betsson.com, changed name to Betsson which is nowadays has a 350M EUR value. Gambling for sure is profitable even in these financial crisis days. I heard a similar story from Norbert Teufelberger and bwin.

Many thanks to the arranger, Excitera Enterprise Forum and their sponsors for a good event with food, beverage, networking and mingling.

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Sun Nordic Software Roadshow Spring 2009 - Stockholm event

I attended the Sun Nordic Sofware roadshow event on Mar. 12 in Stockholm. Ola Ahlvarsson of SIME and founder of Result warmed everybody up and presented entrepreneurial projects and business models. An interesting point made was, no lack of ideas or concepts in businesses today, the trick is how to execute properly and do something with the ideas. Ola also pointed out the importance of building a business with a business model focusing on relations with people NOT just trying to push a new product or service on to a customer.

Thorbjörn Fritzon, Sun Microsystems, presented Sun's roadmap in Open Source and how did we get there. He pointed out that maybe a lot of people still see Sun as a hardware server company. Things have changed a lot within Sun and the last 3-5 years, they have become a software company, with Open Solaris, MySQL, Glassfish (ASP server software), Open ESB (Enterprise services bus), Open SSO (Single Sign-on and ID management) and working on increasing the ecosystem of partners, integrator and professional services companies.

Kaj Arnö who is VP Community Relations at MySQL continued with MySQL and the importance of community relations.

Daniel Fröding from Coss Technologies presented GlassFish, Sun's application server platform that is gaining a lof of traction on the market. Coss Tech provides ASP solutions and professional services basd on GlassFish.

Tickstar is a company focusing on systems integrtion using Open ESB which provides a vendor independent solution of integration of different server solutions in your network. Martin Nyqvist presented how Tickstar is using Open ESB. See Tickstar presentation here.

Thorbjörn Fritzon, Sun Microsystems, presented OpenSSO which is Sun's solution for AAA services and federated identity management. Måns Håkansson then concluded with Sun's solution for Identity access management and the value of role managemnt for rule and policy compliance among users.

Lars Tunkrans, Fujitsu Services then finished the presentations of the day describing how Sun's VDI (Virtual Desktop) is working and projects undertaken by Fujitsu using VDI services. Lars showed differences between different "thin client" solutions going all the way from a thin client application just installed on a regular PC to a diskless client station, no software installed, no power adaptor used (powered through power over ethernet). He brought a proposal project they won (about 250 client stations and server infrastructure) and got to deliver to Värmdö county (just east of Stockholm) which included cost of energy saved as well as very low maintenance and support cost. Since there is no moving parts, no software installed, very small power consumption, about 4W per client station, there is very little that can go wrong once installed. Savings were about 5-6k SEK per client station and year throughout the lifecycle.

Among the exhibitors were; Cortego, who is a systems integrator providing solutions for security and event management. Inserve Technology, a systems integrator and Heimore Group, a solutions provider for security solutions using SSO and IAM

Many thanks to Sun Microsystems for a good event and sponsoring food and beverage.

UPDATE: Find the presentations here

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Green hat people - A Killer event maker to get people participation

I recently attended as a part of the ongoing Excitera Mobile Cup series in Sweden an event hosted by the Green hat People company. Green hat People does event sevices for mobile phones. Niklas Tyllström, the founder presented the company and organized us into competing groups of users for the event game. You can custom make your own trivia game related to whatever event you are doing or sponsoring as a part of, e.g. a tradeshow. Since we were all in the same office building, there were no location based trivia questions. The game console application monitors all the participants, time, answers and can award users.

I like this service, I think this can be perfectly used for all kinds of events, promotions, games, awards, award points, polls and so on. Head over to the website http://www.greenhatpeople.com/ to read more about them.

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HTC Touch 2 with Windows Mobile 6.5 - A preview of better things to come

Windows Mobile 6.5 Running on HTC from Jesus Diaz on Vimeo.

HTC understood early that you have to do something with the standard Windows Mobile user interface. HTC created their TouchFlo UI that makes a nice frontend to Windows Mobile. Microsoft has improved a lot the basic UI with the new release 6.5.

HTC has thus improved their TouchFlo with the new HTC Touch 2. I like this phone and I think HTC is finally getting there. So, right now I think the competition is on between HTC, LG and Samsung for who makes the best Windows Mobile based mobile smartphone.

See the video for a demo of the new Touch with Windows Mobile 6.5.

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Getting it right the right way with the Garmin-Asus G60 smartphone

Garmin G60 Hands On from Jesus Diaz on Vimeo.

It is interesting to see that when a company is focusing on user-friendliness and use technology as an enabler, you usually end up with a pretty good product. I think the new Garmin-Asus G60 is one such example, following Palm Pre's philosophy.

Look at the demo video of the Garmin-Asus G60, the new Linux based smartphone focusing on using location as en enabler not as a feature you as an user have to think about. Location services as a feature is in this case just used to provide a richer experience with the applications most people use. I think the new cooperation between Asus and Garmin will become a successful company with mobile smart devices.

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Getting lost in the cloud - Explore this appealing vizedu cloud computing presentation

I came across http://www.vizedu.com a Telezent, http://www.telezent.com internet property for educational presentations. I really like their style, you get a lot of information out of a dozen slides without having to read a lot of text... In this specific presentation about cloud computing, I think in particular the case with NYT and Amazon webservices as a project shows a new way to go for big projects in need of a computing power solution at an affordable pricetag.

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