According to the European Commission, the 23 million SMEs in the EU represent 99% of businesses, and are a key driver for economic growth, innovation, employment and social integration. It is therefore crucial that EU institutions, governments and the private sector nurture new innovative companies, promote successful entrepreneurship and improve the business environment for SMEs and start-ups.  This...

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In this case study, you can read about Global Business Register (GBR) and their cloud-based solution that aims to make the internet a safer place. Global Business Register (GBR) is an Irish company that in a short space of time has successfully deployed its online identity management products and services across Europe, the USA and is now expanding into other world regions. ...

A start-up created by two British medics combines social networks and cloud computing to make hospital staffing more efficient.

In this case study, you can read about Zartis, a company bringing job-hunting into the 21st century with cloud computing.

In this case study, you can read about SkillPages, an Irish business that developed a platform to transform the way people with skills connect to the people who need them.

If doctors could use natural user interfaces, like gestures, surgery could be quicker and safer.

Online messaging hasn’t changed much since it was introduced more than a decade ago. But German start-up Cooee, based in Kaiserlautern, is seeking to liven up the chat experience with elements from computer gaming and social networking.

Wall Street Journal Tech Europe has become established as one of THE go-to places to find about the challenges and trends facing Europe’s ICT start-up community.  It’s also a great showcase for some of the brightest and best examples in the region.  So we were delighted to help WSJ’s European Technology Editor Ben Rooney meet some of the leading lights in BizSpark –...

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...

10 capitals in just 20 days: this is the plan of Ben Rooney, editor of the Wall Street Journal’s Tech Europe, with the aim “to take the temperature of the continent and talk to the hottest start-ups in the coolest places.”  Starting on September 10th in Tel Aviv, the tour ends of 30 Sept in Dublin, fitting in Istanbul, Paris, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Tallinn, Moscow, Berlin and Barcelona...

It’s nearly impossible for companies to stay on top of the explosion of useful information about markets, competitors and customers that crops up daily on social media and other websites. But that’s also a business opportunity – and one seized by British start-up, Artesian, which seeks to transform the torrent of web-based information into a wellspring of business intelligence.

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.

I’m glad to see that alongside the topic of sustainable cloud computing, a central theme at this year’s BizSpark Summit will be on funding solutions for small and medium-size businesses (SMEs). It needs to be discussed.

Now in its 7th year, the BizSpark European Summit brought together thought-leaders in the entrepreneurial community across Europe - investors, government representatives, start-ups, journalists and Microsoft’s network partners. The summit provided a unique platform to debate the issues facing tech entrepreneurs in Europe and see some of the best start-ups in Europe. The summit was brought to you...

What a great market Europe is for tech entrepreneurship and innovation. Hundreds of start-ups from across Europe were entered into this year’s BizSpark European Summit and I’m awed by the great ideas, business acumen and sheer commitment and energy of our region’s start-ups.

The IT industry’s constant evolution is what makes it so exciting.  Our annual BizSpark European Summit is a great demonstration of this: in its 7th year, this event seems to be reaching new heights and attracting an increasingly impressive list of speakers, judges and delegates from the entrepreneurial community.

Portugal has appeared in the news a lot in recent months due to its severe economic problems, but what is perhaps less well-known that Portugal has a high level of university education. In this recession we are seeing that many students are starting their own companies when they graduate, rather than trying fight for scarce employment vacancies.

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.

It’s a humbling experience talking with CEOs of European start-ups, particularly in the ICT sector.

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. UK based Artesian reduces the cost, time and pain of filtering the web and social-media so that companies can get quick and accurate access to market intelligence to close sales...

See what Microsoft’s Blaise Vignon and Brigitte Baumann, President of EBAN, had to say on the event which provided opportunities for growth and highlighted the contribution of early-stage investors to the Europe 2020 strategy.

I am proud to announce the launch in Germany of Assignio, a health platform powered by Microsoft HealthVault. The platform, which will be operated and marketed by Siemens IT Solutions, marks a change in the way individuals can approach their health and wellness and will steer the German health sector in a new direction.

When Steve Ballmer visited Microsoft’s French HQ in Paris a few weeks ago, he seemed pretty impressed with the entrepreneurial community here that puts France as one of Europe’s most competitive ICT markets, not least due to the Windows Phone 7 competition for developers.

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.

Economic Challenges Last week the European Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (EVCA) reported healthy signs in the Nordic investment market: €1,9 billion invested in 450 companies (25% more) in the first half of 2010, an increase of 23% compared to the second half of 2009. While we don’t see a detailed breakdown for ICT companies, we know that many start-ups in that region still...

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).

The BizSpark European Summit in Paris proved to be a great platform to exchange ideas and best practices for start-ups in Europe.  In fact, we came away with so much good information to share that we decided to save some of it for after the summer break.

During the BizSpark Investor Summit in Paris last month our Chairman for Microsoft Europe, Jan Muehlfeit, was interviewed by CNBC to give his views on the opportunities for small and medium-sized companies to grow in today’s “gloomy” economic climate in Europe.  The fast-paced interview also touches on cloud computing, software for devices market and the growing problem of piracy in...

As part of the Emerging Business team at Microsoft, I have been working closely with start-ups and entrepreneurs across the world for quite a few years. In my first post I spoke about BizSpark, our programme for helping start-ups with software and support and in the second one, I mentioned the importance of cloud computing and the opportunities it has created for start-ups .

In the first of our 3 videos on the EUGA Irish launch in Dublin we hear from Nicky Martin, Managing Director - Affect Network, who explains the process that the start-ups go through to receive their European funding. Nicky Martin gives an interesting perspective on the EUGA process, his company supports the companies throughout the process of assessing suitability and grant applications. I think this is an...

What?   A one-day event in Paris on May 25th hosted by Microsoft and broadcast LIVE online. Bringing together key entrepreneurs in Europe for a start-up investment pitch. Followed by presentations and a debate on the scope and challenges of entrepreneurship and innovation in Europe as we together seek to reach the goals of the Europe 2020 strategy.   Who? Silicon Valley entrepreneurial...

 Have a look again at the first session of the BizSpark Summit that took place on May 25th in Paris and was hosted by Guy Kawasaki.  

The 6th BizSpark Summit was a great success, with some dynamic speakers including Sillicon Valley entrepreneur and host of the summit, Guy Kawasaki. It was fantastic to see and experience the buzz from this event as starts-ups discussed with potential investors, as well as hundreds of people twittering their impressions throughout the day, either as they watched in person, or followed the live stream...

You may have caught one of my earlier post in this video series in which I discussed why Microsoft is so involved with start-ups and entrepreneurs and give a few insights into some of the programmes we run to support them.

As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, Ireland is one of Europe’s key hubs for innovation, offering an environment for tech entrepreneurs.It is crucial that in Ireland and the rest of Europe, SMEs can operate in an environment supportive of innovation.

Hosted by Guy Kawasaki, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Follow the highlights of the event on Microsoft.eu

As part of the Emerging Business team at Microsoft, I have been working closely with start-ups and entrepreneurs right across the world for quite a few years.

The Italian company, Threeplicate, is the latest European start-up to be named Startup of the day in the Startup Zone, the online space for all things BizSpark related (p.s. BizSpark is a Microsoft programme which helps start-ups get off the ground by providing them with software, support and a network of contacts to help improve their visibility to the wider world.)

I recently read this article on BizSpark in Ireland on siliconrepublic.com (check out their website, there’s some great tech articles) and it draws upon interesting points relating to what we at Microsoft are doing with the BizSpark program.

Our guest blogger today is Riitta Raesmaa, partner and co-founder of Sopima, a Finnish SME and part of the Microsoft BizSpark programme!

We’ve said it before but we’ll say it again: Ireland is one of the most exciting countries for tech entrepreneurs and one of the strongest for BizSpark   www.microsoft.com/BizSpark/, our programme to help early stage start-ups by providing them with software and support. 

As we’ve been doing for a few months now, we once again bring you European companies that have been selected as start-up of the day on Microsoft’s StartupZone, the online space for companies in BizSpark.

Le Web is the biggest web event in Europe, and the organisers have increasingly looked to make start-ups the stars of the show, giving great companies the visibility they need to get them past that initial gestation period when so many don’t make it.

I was pleased to read that Shout’em, a Croatian start-up that’s part of our BizSpark programme for start-ups (read more about the programme here) was selected as one of the top 5 start-ups to look out for in 2010! Read about it in this article from PC World.

We love to see start-ups grow and it’s especially encouraging to see the next generation of entrepreneurs make a flying start.

What do HSBC and the BizSpark program have in common?  They are both focused on supporting innovative SMEs across the world.

It has been brought to our attention that we have not yet featured European Grants Advisor (EUGA) in our Growth & SMEs blog, which is a crying shame, given that it is a highly successful programme which we’re very proud of! 

We’ve regularly been reporting on European start-ups featured in the Microsoft StartupZone, a site which showcases and brings together Bizspark companies (BizSpark being a programme we’ve developed to help out start-ups with access to software and support.)

While competitions are great to win, they are also a great way for start-ups to network with investors and possible partners, hone their presentation skills and generate some visibility. That’s why we were pleased to sponsor the Eurecan European Venture Contest which drew to a close this month.

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!

Who would start a business development for start-ups in a slump? That’s precisely when it has to be done, says Microsoft.

Almost exactly a year ago, Microsoft launched BizSpark, a global program designed to catalyze the success of entrepreneurs by making Microsoft’s end-to-end software solutions available to early-stage startups with no upfront costs. 

To develop its world-leading 3D simulation technology, French startup SimplySim turned to Microsoft for advice and practical support. SimplySim gained access to technology, marketing networks and government funding for R&D.

Portugal’s national employment agency offers grants to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to train their new employees. The European Union Grants Advisor (EUGA) helps firms apply for these funds—it wanted to simplify the existing application process, which took months for approval. As a result of an agreement signed between Microsoft and the Portuguese government, SMEs have access to 500...

Developed economies are already finding it hard to maintain standards of healthcare within existing budgets. Now payers are facing a huge dose of extra cost as, building on advances in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, imaging, diagnostics and other fields, medical technology is delivering the potential for new treatments and diagnostics. eHealth – the application of information and communications...