Tag Archive for 'EEN'

Twitter revisited

Published on November 30, 2009 in Austria and Business innovation. 0 Comments Tags: CITT, clusters, EEN, Europe, facebook, marketing, social networking, social networks, Twitter, vienna, vite.

I have been following the nowEurope blog for a while now after my colleagues at VITE directed my attention towards it and want to take the opportunity to thank Steve for welcoming me to the community. It is very interesting to see how opinions are shaped and also can change in just a few months of time. In March this year, a discussion about Twitter took place in this blog. Back then, my colleagues from VITE both had the oppinion that Twitter is an interesting phenomenon but they didn’t believe in its full potential yet.

Now it is November and VITE has it’s own Twitter and Facebook accounts that are being constantly updated and utilised to be in regular contact with the IT community in Vienna and beyond it’s national borders. Being hesitant about the usefulness of Twitter at first, we at VITE have received very positive feedback for offering this additional source of information to our members and to everyone who is interested in the Viennese IT community.

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Potential technical solutions for Technology Transfer processes

Published on August 25, 2009 in About CITT and Innovation policy. 0 Comments Tags: cetex, CITT, EEN, know-how transfer.

Technology transfer is a complex process. The supporting online solutions should be clear and precise, user friendly and efficient. The IT industry offers a range of products which could offer various solutions. Technology transfer solution should provide an collaboration platform, utilising databases in stand-alone or client/server modes.

Two groups of products and services offer appropriate solutions:

External services – provided by an external company such as ISPs (internet service providers), by enhanced product portfolio with business communication and administrative functions.

Applications and solutions to be implemented into corporate IT infrastructures. I will now examine a handful of these solutions, including the platform we have adopted for our project (CITT) which is called the Central European Technology Exchange (CETEX).

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How did mobile prices rise by 20% in the Czech Republic?

Published on July 9, 2009 in Czech Republic and Facts, figures & trends. 2 Comments Tags: Austria, competitiveness, Czech Republic, EEN, implementation progress report, mobile operators, mobile phone usage, mobile usage, oecd.

Analyzing prices for mobile phone usage, in his posting on July 2nd, Robert Nemeth asked an interesting question: “How could the same multinational telecom company cut prices by more than 50% in Austria, while keeping the same price in HU and SK and increasing prices in CZ?” Here is my explanation. This answer applies to the Czech Republic, but it’s also a warning for other countries.

The problem was described in the Commission’s 14^th implementation progress report, published in March this year. Among other benchmarks, it used an OECD basket of mobile usage and calculated the cost in various EU countries – in October 2007 and October 2008. The results are what Robert mentions: a drop of around 50% for Austria, of 10% for the EU average – but an increase of 24% for the Czech Republic.

This struck me too, so in March I looked more deeply into the issue and wrote an article about it (available here, but only in Czech). My findings can be summarized as follows:

Half of the increase for the Czech Republic (12% out of 24%) can be attributed to variations of the exchange rate between the Czech crown and the Euro. The two currencies did change accordingly between October 2007 and 2008, when the benchmark was evaluated. But there is also a strong contra-argument: other comparisons in the same Commission’s report do not reflect the change in exchange rates at all. Maybe because different parts of the report were produced by different people using different methodologies.
The other half of the increase (the remaining 12%) can be attributed mainly to the changes in call charging. Between 2007 and 2008 our mobile operators silently completed their switch to variants that maximize their revenues. Mainly to 60+60, which is now the standard for national mobile calls, and also for roaming.

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The secrets of successful Baltic ICT startups

Published on July 8, 2009 in Business innovation and Facts, figures & trends. 4 Comments Tags: Baltics, cee countries, central and eastern europe, EEN, ICT, indextools, international expansion, online advertising, scandinavia, skype.

I delivered this overview of the Baltic and CEE startup climate at the TechCrunch Nordic meeting in Stockholm on May 27. Thanks to Vlastimil and Steve, who contributed their insights to my presentation.

Two key findings from the event:

Even Scandinavian startups struggle with breaking out to the world, having much better technical and production than sales and marketing talent there. The few that do, often have US people or previous experience from US as part of the team.
The Scandinavians still view CEE countries as something strange and distant, even when we do a lot of cross-border business together. What’s more, even Finland and Sweden are very distant from each other and there is almost no cooperation.

If someone would like to hear more about Baltic startup web and product development opportunities, feel free to get back to me. Besides our company there are tens of great software development companies, small and large, and hundreds of great private developers available.

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New partnership: EEN-CITT

Published on June 5, 2009 in Current events and Slovakia. 1 Comment Tags: cetex, CITT, EEN.

The Slovak branch of the Enterprise Europe Network and the Biterap cluster have formed an official partnership. The purpose of the partnership is to use the EEN’s experience and existing contacts (www.enterprise-europe-network.sk) for efficient implementation and utilization of the CETEX solution, developed within the CITT project for transfer of know-how and technologies.

The EEN provides the entrepreneurs with complex and easily available counselling and assistance in the sphere of business, innovations and research.

Cooperation will include cooperation in organizing events, raising awareness among clients about services provided by a partner party (signposting), and mutual exchange of information efficient for the benefit of both partners‘ clients. Aim of the partnership is to initiate and improve cooperation among companies – clients of the EEN and the CETEX, facilitate and professionally cover the process of transfer of know-how and technologies, and increase participation of companies in the 7RP.

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Czech Republic: SMEs with experience in FP6

Published on March 16, 2006 in Czech Republic and EU funding programmes. 0 Comments Tags: Czech Republic, EEN, european commission, foreign partners, framework programme, research and development.

Within the FP6 experience survey lasting for 18 months, we have got 55 completed questionnaires so far. In fact, respondents can be divided into thirds. One third of respondents is formed by microfirms of up to 10 employees. Another third is represented by small firms with 11-50 employees and the last third falls for medium-sized companies with 51-250 employees.

It is evident from survey results that four fifths of companies have been invited to a project by a coordinator or another partner of a project consortium. Only one third of companies involved in the survey actively searched for partners and 24 % of them initiated a project. About one fourth of respondents belongs among experienced project applicants whose rate of success reaches 75 and more % of funded projects. On the other hand, one fourth of companies succeeds only with every third or more project proposal.

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