Enterprise Ireland are always looking to balance the need for companies to map out their business plans with the need to get on with the serious business of creating Sales, Exports and Jobs. That’s why we launched the Internet and Games fund in December. Because of that success, a follow-on initiative, the Competitive Start Fund, launches today.
If you are an early stage company with a software solution from any of the following sectors, you can apply to our Competitive Start Fund. The application form is all online, but you must complete it before March 11th, 2011.
• Cloud computing
• Enterprise software
• Internet & Games
• SaaS
• Telecoms
Up to 15 companies will be selected to receive an investment of €50,000 , in return for a 10% ordinary equity stake. The investment will be made in two equal tranches. This means that the selected companies will be required to secure additional investment of €5,000 prior to the release of Enterprise Ireland’s investment.
If you’re a shortlisted applicant you’ll need to deliver a short investment pitch to a panel of industry experts and Enterprise Ireland. Full details can be found on www.enterprise-ireland.com/csf or email csf@enterprise-ireland.com Telephone: 01 727 2202
Competitive Start Fund, Potential Exporters
In case you missed Last Weeks Cloud Computing Debate, Silicon Republic are now hosting the videos online.
Hasan Nasiri, from the Enterprise Architecture Group of the Bank of America, provided some very good insight into the challenges the Bank is facing in its consideration of using Cloud Computing. As with all large organisations, Hasan noted that the Bank does see the long term potential of using the Cloud but the notion of trust is extremely important; trust with vendors, trust with the Bank’s applications, and, most importantly, trust with their data and customers. Click here for the video of Hasan’s talk.
Other speakers at the evening event included Conor O’Riordan (CEO, Tradefacilitate.com) and Tim Willoughby (Assistant Director, LGCSB) and Torstein Harildstad.
There are many things that are up in the air these days – including the interesting matter of cloud computing. For those unaware of the topic, cloud computing is a general term for anything that involves delivering hosted services over the Internet. Inspired by the cloud symbol that is frequently used to represent the Internet in flow charts and diagrams, cloud computing has three distinct characteristics that distinguish it from traditional hosting: it is sold on demand, typically by the minute or the hour; it is ‘elastic’, in that a user can have as much or as little of a service as they want at any given time; and the service is fully managed by the provider (in other words, the consumer needs nothing but a computer and Internet access).
Significant innovations in virtualization and distributed computing, as well as improved access to high-speed Internet and a weak economy, have accelerated interest in cloud computing, which makes it an intriguing if not timely topic for debate. To this end, in recognition of the important opportunities that cloud computing can bring to all businesses, large and small across all sectors, Enterprise Ireland, along with Irish Internet Association, Irish Software Association, Irish Computer Society, IBEC, Irish Software Innovation Network and EuroCloud Ireland are collectively presenting the Definitive Cloud Computing Debate.
Taking place on Thursday February 10 at Dublin’s Westbury Hotel, (more…)
Enterprise Ireland has done a lot of work with Irish Software and Service companies to help them move to Saas and Cloud business models. One of these companies is Celtrino. With the support Enterprise Ireland, Celtrino began a research and development programme to bring to market a cloud based solution for the automation of the accounts payable function. You can read their experience (including deploying the solution with Londis) by clicking on the image below.
If Celtrino can put an Accounts Payable solution in the cloud, what’s holding you back?
 According to AMI-Partners, small and medium business spending in the U.S. on software-as-a-service (SaaS) will increase exponentially over the next five years, eclipsing growth in investments in on-premise software by a significant margin. AMI forecasts a 25% CAGR in hosted business application services spending through 2014. This will come against a modest 5% uptake for all other categories of on-premise software combined. However, this growth will not be uniformly spread across all hosted applications. Mature applications such as ERP, SCM, procurement, finance, and core HR will turn over more slowly than those that are less saturated and have lower switching costs. (more…)
I was in London on Wednesday and got up early to attend a breakfast briefing on social media – “Social Media – How to use Social Networking to connect with your customers”. The first thing that struck me was that of the five companies that presented, three were Irish and one was Irish based. Are we developing a leadership in this area?
There was a lot of statistics thrown around at the event, but they were the type we all love to quote. For example:
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Software as a Service (SaaS) is being viewed by many as every CIO’s dream – a low cost, convenient application of software that enables a company to focus on its core business by outsourcing all its IT. But can this model support mission-critical systems effectively? And will the one size fits all approach work for companies looking to differentiate themselves with distinctive products and services?
One of my client companies, Exaxe, recently published a white paper which examined the use of SaaS within the life and pensions industry. While recognising the benefits of SaaS in terms of economies of scale, a usage-based cost, outsourcing maintenance and the appeal of ‘anywhere’ access, it highlights the fact that in order to maximise benefits, users are restricted to the range of possibilities that are provided by the software and its standard configurable options.
The paper argues that the primary benefit of SaaS wihin a life and pensions organisation comes from removing only utility support systems from the internal IT department, allowing them to concentrate on the core mission-critical systems.
The white paper, “Software As a Service – A Model For Life Assurers?” is available here (PDF, will open in a new browser window).
 The authors of The Future of Cloud interviewed 15 thought leaders of telecom vendors, clients, investors, partners, and competitors to find out about the Future of Cloud: Salesforce, Iterasi, Sofinnova, Intalio, NetService Ventures, Sun Microsystems, Aruba Networks, Cisco Systems, Google, GoGrid, VMWare, Microsoft, Yahoo!, NewBay, and the Federal CTO of the United States. Aneesh Chopra. Will telecoms have a role to play in the Future of Cloud, or will it be the traditional Web providers like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Salesforce who will dominate? Will telecoms providers be able to play in the services and applications space? What do our interviewees think a telecom could or should offer?
Inside the featured Chapter Timo Bauer, Senior Vice President & General Manager Americas, shares NewBay’s vision and insights on one of the largest consumer-facing telecom cloud solutions; and how the Cloud is more than just about operational efficiency or cost savings, but can increase a telecom’s ARPU, drive messaging and data traffic, strengthen customer loyalty and build mobile communities and social networks based on user generated content.
According to The Future of Cloud co-author Thorsten Claus
“Timo Bauer, GM Americas for NewBay, was so nice to give me a very detailed picture of their product roadmap. Yes, he sneaked into the book in the very last minute, but it’s one of the best telecom-centric interviews I had.”
Download this Chapter heree or read more and download the entire The Future of Cloud Ebook at: http://thefutureofcloud.com/download-free-e-book/
This is a guest post from Dave Feenan, Vice-Chair at EuroCloud Ireland and Business Development Director at ASPeon, an Enterprise Ireland Client.
The term Cloud Computing is bounded around to explain a number of new emerging trends and options available to the marketplace. Are they brand new solution or is it just a bundling together of different technologies that are in existence for many years?
Whatever your views are, we must not forget that in order for all this to happen the software development community play a significant role. You may ask yourself “Who are these people” ? “What are they working on”? We are all familiar with the large corporate players in the Cloud space but through-out Ireland there are many wonderful indigenous companies successfully developing and deploying solutions in the Cloud. So let’s bring them and you together at the forth-coming EuroCloud Ireland Seminar “Developing in the Cloud” to be held on Wednesday 20th October, at the National College of Ireland Campus in the IFSC from 2pm.
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Cloud, EuroCloud, Potential Exporters, SaaS
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