Author's entries

In the field of cancer detection, prevention and treatment, new ideas are helping to save lives and to improve quality of life during and following treatment. Ideas Matter hosted an impressive event on 14 May in London, during Cancer Prevention Week in the UK, to present some innovative technologies that are making a difference in the battle against cancer, and to ask innovators to describe how...

This month, we celebrate the success of a small Dutch start-up named Atomblock that has recently evolved and become a division of a much larger European company named ALSO.  Atomblock is now called ALSO Digital.  It is a cloud-based infrastructure company that helps game publishers, software publishers and retailers to sell their products on a global scale – in other words, providing a cloud...

Anlock, a Greek company founded in 2010 that develops educational apps for children. Currently, more than 50 language-based educational apps, across 6 different languages (English, Greek, Spanish, Italian, German and French), help children between the age of 3-6 to learn letters, words and spelling. Working together with teachers and university professors from different countries, Anlock manages to have an...

The EU and, before that, the European Community, have been talking since the 1960s about the possibility of a single patent that covers its whole territory.  As it stands now, only one aspect of getting a patent here is centralised: You can go to the European Patent Office and have your application examined one time rather than in multiple countries.

The SME receiving recognition this week is GINA, a Czech Republic company founded in 2010 by one of the finalist teams of Imagine Cup 2010, a worldwide student competition. Turning student projects into real businesses is the type of innovative economic activities needed for growth in Europe, and GINA is another fine example.

The SME receiving recognition this month is BizSpark start-up, OpenRatio from Sweden. This company was founded in 2011 by Rabih Kanaan and Agustinus Prasetyo Widodo and it enables mobile publishing for a broad range of mobile devices and platforms. OpenRatio offers solutions that respond to the current problems that designers and developers are facing: continuous market evolution (current consumers are...

The Nordic region has been providing many great examples of successful SMEs using cloud computing to develop and sell ICT services. This month, we will feature fluxLoop, a very young Norwegian company that chose to build their businesses on the Windows Azure cloud platform and who joined the Microsoft BizSpark Plus program, which supports thousands of IT startups around Europe.

Hilverse is a Polish company founded in December 2011 that runs a flagship project, LifeCircle+, which aims to revolutionise lifesaving methods by offering a comprehensive solution to existing challenges of the blood collection system.

In celebration of the Windows 8 launch, this month our featured SME is Captain Dash, a French company that has developed an app for Windows 8 devices providing a business analytics service powered by the Windows Azure cloud. This app enables the aggregation and synchronization of business data from several web 2.0 services into a unique platform. This allows Captain Dash’s clients to better understand...

October 15-21 marks SME Week in the European Union!  This is a time for the EU to recognise, promote and help small and medium-sized businesses, which are so important for Europe’s innovation, competitiveness, jobs and overall welfare.

The SME deserving recognition this month is Monolith Advertising, an Estonian-Croatian company. It began operations just 3 months ago with the single purpose of revolutionizing offline advertising by transforming existing advertising displays into smart and interactive tools. Monolith Advertising is run by a team of 6 people who, since May 2012, have already managed to partner with major corporate...

The European Central Bank’s proposal to buy unlimited amounts of crisis-hit government bonds has provided a glimmer of light through the shadows of the financial downturn. In the long term however, it’s clear that Europe must re-engineer its economy to achieve sustainable economic growth and abate record-high unemployment levels, especially among young people.

The SME receiving recognition for the month of August is JamPot Technologies, a company of 12 employees from Northern Ireland. JamPot invented an application that allows other companies and individuals to build their own mobile applications without needing any technical knowledge. JamPot’s innovations simplify the use of sophisticated technology, enabling any of us to create smartphone apps for any...

Our July SME of the Month is Admiral Dynamics, a Belgian company that offers expertise in cloud-based solutions with particular focus on the powerful and efficient Microsoft Dynamics CRM and SharePoint tools. Its specialty is providing innovative, dynamic and flexible solutions that allow its customers to increase the efficiency and standard of their operations without making unnecessary...

Commerce Guys, a young company based in France, was also the winner of the Microsoft BizSpark European Summit. This innovative eCommerce specialist uses the open source Drupal technology on top of the Windows Azure cloud platform. It provides online merchants with the powerful, responsive and innovative eCommerce solutions needed to succeed with Drupal Commerce.

The SME receiving recognition this month is Avaelgo, a Romanian company of 10 employees that offers IT consulting services, software development, and technical training for customers worldwide. Their flexible and innovative solutions are based on rapid adoption of cutting edge cloud platform technologies, and they ensure that their customers are at the forefront of their respective fields.

Small businesses can provide valuable solutions to the Public Sector, as Portuguese SME CaveDigital has demonstrated since 2005. Its 8 employees are committed to increasing the value of their clients’ technological investments by offering cloud-based solutions. Based in Portugal, their operations have extended across Europe, and North and Latin America since they formed 12 years. CaveDigital reaches...

NetIntegrate is a Swedish IAMCP partner (International Association of Microsoft Channel Partners) that provides cloud based solutions for SMEs. The 2 employees of NetIntegrate are committed to providing customers the piece of the digital communications puzzle that allows them to shift focus from ICT maintenance to business processes, thereby increasing levels of productivity.

French company and IAMCP (International Association of Microsoft Channel Partners) member, ASCOT, demonstrates the potential for a small company to tailor cloud computing services for particular sectors: in this instance, the hotel business.

When Europeans use cloud computing services, they are connecting to large data centres for the computing power they need.  When they want more cloud services, they need more computing power capacity in those data centres.

At the recent Fuelling the European Economy event, Vice-President Kroes reiterated her belief that the flexibility and efficiency of cloud computing will ‘change our economies’, and she is determined to help resolve barriers to adoption to help Europe become ‘cloud-active’.

Our January European Cloud SME of the Month is Link, a Portuguese company that provides businesses with innovative consulting, management solutions, and specialized services. Link helps their customers to streamline business operations and achieve their goals without having to maintain cumbersome processes. Cloud computing platforms are now enabling Link to provide these services more effectively.

This month’s European Cloud SME of the Month is MailTalk™, a Danish company that provides a platform for “digital dialogue”, enabling more effective and productive marketing and communications.  MailTalk is a very young company, with 10 employees, but sees global potential.  MailTalk’s sells advanced software tools that can help any organisation both automate and...

KMS Sales and Services offers data solutions to help the healthcare industry manage facilities, staffing, and patient needs. Its service is especially useful for healthcare providers, including hospitals, clinics and insurance suppliers struggling to implement healthcare reform and to manage shrinking budgets. It helps them estimate future demand for healthcare and plan business development, when market...

SMEs form the fabric of the European economy; are they also the fabric of the European cloud?  This week, as a contribution to SME Week in Brussels, Microsoft hosted another of our Cloud Computing Policy Roundtables, this time on the topic ‘Building a European cloud by and for SMEs’.  The intent was to explore the opportunities that cloud computing has for European SMEs, and any...

I am coming back with another example of an innovative business that helps build the European cloud market, Cigler Software.

As we mentioned several times before, cloud computing is an evolution in the technology industry that promises significant economic benefits in Europe – for both users and technology providers. SMEs are the engine of economic growth in Europe, and as users, SMEs will quickly take advantage of the cost reductions and productivity gains enabled by cloud computing.  Added to this, there are also...

This Microsoft-hosted workshop will examine how the use of new technologies, especially Cloud Computing can ease the path toward e-Health. The workshop will gather together important leaders in the European Medical Community as well as Health organizations involved in innovative telemedicine projects. It is being held on November 11/12 in the Microsoft Executive Briefing Centre in Brussels.

ICT policy in the EU has been promoting openness for a long time, most recently with the Digital Agenda, and more of industry is lining up with these policies.  This is a very positive thing and Interoperability will remain a key objective in ICT policymaking for a long time, as policy makers examine both the prospect of new technologies relating to cloud computing as well as the legacy of a variety of...

In the final video in our cloud computing interview series we have taken clips from a number of speakers like Geert Ferranti, Sale Director – Ferranti; Jean Michel Davault, Managing Director – Hommes & Process; Wolfram Borchers, CEO – ITA systemhaus.

What does the cloud mean for the future production, distribution and consumption of audiovisual services? Does it mean the end of location-based production; lower production values and more user generated content displacing high value material? How can content be made secure and monetised? Is the cloud the answer to pan-EU content availability? Will the cloud overshadow broadcast TV or provide a flash...

In our latest video looking at cloud computing today, Henk Kok, Director of Perrit, explains how cloud computing is enabling a competitive European business environment.

In the third video in our cloud computing interview series Andrea Ferravante - Diamante, gives us the Italian perspective on the potential challenges of cloud computing. 

 It’s a type of Rorschach inkblot test: two people could look at the EC’s Communication on the Digital Agenda for Europe and see interesting variations.

In the second of our cloud computing interview series we hear from Juan José Amor Cazorla, Director General – Nextel who gives some insights into the benefits of cloud computing from a Spanish perspective.

In this interview Nigel Gibbons, Executive Chariman – Unitech talks about the cloud and how it is changing the way we do business. 

Every year we bring together and discuss trending topics with business start-ups  and growing companies developing products and services on Microsoft platforms. This year we interviewed some of these developers about their views on  cloud computing.

  ICT interoperability is a fundamental challenge for our industry.

One aspect of government we thoroughly dislike here in the UK is useless and inefficient bureaucracy. 

“I believe in horses….The automobile is a transient phenomenon”.

Our favorite Geek in Disguise, Steve Clayton from the UK, provides on his blog a short and useful summary of Steve Ballmer’s speech yesterday in which the Microsoft CEO described how “we’re all in” cloud computing.

Cloud computing is hitting the headlines, and for good reason: it is providing business and consumers with a vast array of new services. In addition, it is making computing more cost-effective, allowing businesses to do more with less. This is especially relevant to SMEs, which in the past often suffered under the strain of IT costs but can now scale without having to wonder how they can afford to make the...

Times have changed. "Microsoft has been on a journey itself... doing things on interoperability that were unimaginable just a few years ago..."

For all the buzz about cloud computing, the potential benefits are real: cost savings as well as the exciting possibilities for small European entrepreneurs to reach global audiences with a minimum of upfront IT costs. Yet the adoption of cloud computing services will depend a great deal on how industry addresses the fundamental interests of users in security, privacy and interoperability, interests about...

This has already been a busy month in Europe for Microsoft cooperating with competitors to ensure that different software products can work better with each other.   

eHealth is key to better patient care but health systems should work together i.e. be interoperable if widespread eHealth is to become a reality. Here are the basics, as described by a series of experts. Filmed at an event hosted by Microsoft Europe - interoperability and eHealth - in September 2009.

The EU's Services Directive aims to facilitate the provision of services across borders within the European Union and requires EU Member States to establish an online space for service providers to have a Single Point of Contact (SPOC.)