Author's entries

With this year’s edition of the European BizSpark Summit just behind us, we wanted to see what winning the competition meant for last years’ finalists.

To paraphrase Fidelity Growth Partners Europe’s Simon Clark, one of the judges at this year's BizSpark European Summit: it’s pretty tough pitching your business to a panel of seasoned investors in five minutes, with over two hundred people watching – media, VC’s, and movers and shakers from the tech industry.

It has been widely acknowledged that SMEs and start-ups are key drivers for countries’ innovation and economic prosperity. Microsoft is proudly partnering with these innovative organizations in order to develop successful IT solutions.

As mentioned in an earlier post, Ireland is one of Europe’s key hubs for innovation where entrepreneurial initiatives, crucial to the growth of European economy, should be able to operate in a supportive environment.

In this case study, you can read about an Irish company which is enabling SMEs in Europe by developing multi-featured and highly customisable HR management tools through cloud computing.

In this case study, you can read about the new way a UK based company is engaging with its customers and building its software business due to the simplicity cloud computing is enabling the deployment of its services.

As we’ve highlighted in previous posts, one by the President of the SME Union and another on European Commission’s initiative: ACCESS-ICT 2010, great innovation needs to be partnered with access to capital and it remains one of the biggest challenges that the entrepreneurial community in Europe faces.

Joe Wilson, new Western European lead, speaks from the heart about what Microsoft is trying to do for start-ups in Europe.  As a veteran entrepreneur himself, Joe brings a very personal perspective and talks about his first exposure to the European Venture Capital (VC) community.  Expect to see more blogs from Joe and his team in the months to come.

In this case study, you can read about an Italian company that was able to quickly develop and deploy its software to new markets just by using a cloud computing platform.

In our second video from this year's Microsoft BizSpark European Summit series, we hear from some of the region’s most promising start-ups.

Irish company InishTech Software specializes in helping Europe’s technology entrepreneurs adopt flexible licensing terms that help them be more competitive, while safeguarding their Intellectual Property (IP).

One of the most important ways in which we are supporting European technology companies is helping them find access to capital in those crucial early years.

Recently, we were reminded that the Nordic region is a vibrant community for technology innovation and entrepreneurs. We took part in two events in recent weeks: firstly the EBAN Winter University in Stockholm and Finland’s Money Talks Forum.

As you’ll have gathered from my recent posts, LeWeb – the biggest web event in Europe - took place last week. I didn’t go myself but have heard from my colleagues who did, as well as the buzz online, that it was an awesome and inspirational event, as ever.

As you’ll know if you read my last post, this week is Le Web week, and we’re quite excited about it. Besides the fact that we’re a Gold Partner along with Google, it’s just a really great event, which has brought together the best and brightest web entrepreneurs, start-ups, VCs, app builders, designers and so forth.

What is Le Web?

Last month, I posted an entry leading you to the MicrosoftStartupZone’s latest featured European start-up and promised that I’d keep you updated, so here goes. Over the last few weeks, two more European start-ups have been featured!

We were very proud to announce the grand opening of our Dublin data centre in September 2009.

Cliff Reeves – General Manager of the Emerging Business Team (which in non-Microsoft speak means he works with start-ups and investors to help them make the most of their relationship with Microsoft and grow into super-successful companies!) – recently travelled around Europe to meet with a number of start-ups and Network Partners in the BizSpark program. 

Please click below to view a short 1-minute interview with Erich Andersen, VP and Deputy General Counsel of the Windows Business at Microsoft, filmed on a recent visit to Europe.

I just looked up the term Cloud computing on Google News and unless I’m doing something wrong, it appears that the term has turned up in as many news items in the last month as it has in the last year.

Microsoft BizSpark is a programme we’ve developed to help early stage startups by providing them with key resources - access to software, support and visibility - when they need it the most. Read more on the BizSpark site and see how to enrol (it’s dead easy).