Collanos Blog

At CeBIT 2009, Collanos and Translumina Networks will be launching LumiMagic, which is a cost-effective Linux box combining the functions of a VoIP telephone switchboard, network router, and WLAN access point. When integrated into a Collanos collaboration network, it offers companies and their partners a comprehensive communications and collaboration platform. The latest versions of Collanos Workplace and Collanos Phone will also be on display. Making its first appearance at the CeBIT (Booth A56/Hall 13) as part of the “Triple Play & more” consortium, Collanos will be exhibiting its software for electronic team collaboration among multiple organizations.

Collanos and Translumina Networks launch the LumiMagic telephone switchboard for SMBs

LumiMagic epitomizes the SMB (small and medium-sized businesses) telephone switchboard of the future. Oriented to the needs of SMBs, the compact, cost-effective Linux box combines the services of a VoIP telephone switchboard, network router, and wireless LAN access point in a single package. The innovative integration of the telephone switchboard into a Collanos collaboration network provides a company’s employees with the most direct communication paths and comprehensive teamwork support – all at low cost and regardless of their individual locations.

Every employee and every Collanos user at a supplier, partner, or customer location can be integrated into the company’s communications and collaboration network. Employees can thus be reached via their company phone number, and when it comes to their collaborative work with others within or outside the company, they can take advantage of functions geared toward team information sharing, instant messaging, telephone conferences, and project management. In doing so, telephony as well as Internet-based collaboration with every other employee and Collanos user worldwide is free of charge. Phone connections to the public telephone network are very inexpensive thanks to the typical low-cost VoIP telephone rates.

New Collanos Version

To be introduced at the CeBIT, Collanos’ latest Version 1.4.0.2 features many new functions and enhancements. New Premium services have been added to Collanos Workplace and Collanos Phone. For example, all users can now be reached at their own Collanos phone number from any public telephone.

Collanos Receives Dual Nominations for the 2009 IT INNOVATION PRIZE.

Collanos has been nominated for the “2009 IT INNOVATION PRIZE” at this year’s CeBIT for its innovative solution geared especially toward small and medium-sized businesses. That puts Collanos in the top three in the “Unified Communications” and “Special Awards – Switzerland” categories. The winners will be announced on March 5 at the official CeBIT awards ceremony.

Prices and Availability

Collanos Software products are free of charge and can be downloaded at http://www.collanos.com. Prices for LumiMagic vary depending on the package ordered and start at Euro 129 plus a monthly flat rate of Euro 19.

About Triple Play & more

”Triple Play & more” is a consortium of companies operating in the telecommunications and multimedia industries. Their areas of activity include construction, operations, maintenance, and financing of multimedia platforms as well as the development and sales of telecommunications and interactive multimedia services that are consolidated on telephony, broadband Internet, and television end devices.

In addition to companies of the Translumina Group (Translumina Networks, Comitas, Lambdastream, three60mobile), Triple Play & more also includes Collanos Software, CTModule, NetModule, AareNet, MHM and BlueBit.

Collanos und Translumina Networks lancieren mit LumiMagic auf der CeBIT 2009 eine kostengünstige Linux-Box, welche die Funktionen von VoIP Telefonzentrale, Netzwerkrouter und WLAN Access Point kombiniert. Integriert ins Collanos Collaboration Netzwerk bietet sie Unternehmen mit ihren Partnern eine umfassende Plattform für Kommunikation und Zusammenarbeit. Weiter werden die neusten Versionen von Collanos Workplace und Collanos Phone gezeigt. Im Rahmen des Zusammenschlusses „Triple Play & more“ präsentiert sich Collanos, Anbieterin von Software für die firmenübergreifende, elektronische Zusammenarbeit von Teams, erstmals auf der CeBIT (Stand A56/Halle 13).

LumiMagic VoIP PBX

Collanos und Translumina Networks lancieren die LumiMagic Telefonzentrale für KMU

LumiMagic verkörpert die KMU-Telefonzentrale der Zukunft. Ausgerichtet auf die Bedürfnisse von KMUs kombiniert die kleine, kostengünstige Linux-Box VoIP Telefonzentrale, Netzwerkrouter und Wireless LAN Access Point. Die innovative Integration der Telefonzentrale ins Collanos Collaboration Netzwerk ermöglicht den Mitarbeitenden eines Unternehmens unabhängig von deren Standort einfachste Kommunikationswege und umfassende Teamworkunterstützung bei geringen Kosten.

Jeder Mitarbeitende und jeder Collanos Nutzer bei Lieferanten, Partnern und Kunden, kann in das Kommunikations- und Kollaborations-Netzwerk der Firma integriert werden. So wird er weltweit über seine Firmen-Telefonnummer erreichbar und profitiert in der Zusammenarbeit mit anderen, innerhalb der Firma oder firmenübergreifend, von Funktionen für Team Information Sharing, Instant Messaging, Telefonkonferenz und Projektmanagement. Dabei ist für jeden Mitarbeitenden sowohl die Telefonie als auch die Zusammenarbeit im Internet mit jedem anderen Mitarbeiter und Collanos Nutzer weltweit kostenlos. Telefonverbindungen ins öffentliche Telefonnetz sind dank typischen VoIP Telefonkonditionen sehr kostengünstig.

Neue Collanos Version

Collanos weist in der zur CeBIT veröffentlichten Version 1.4.0.2 zahlreiche neue Funktionen und Optimierungen auf. Neue Premium-Services ergänzen Collanos Workplace und Collanos Phone: Jeder Nutzer kann nun über seine individuelle Collanos Telefonnummer von jedem öffentlichen Telefon erreicht werden.

Collanos zweimal für den INNOVATIONSPREIS-IT 2009 nominiert

Als innovative, speziell für den Mittelstand geeignete Lösung ist Collanos für den an der CeBIT 2009 vergebenen „INNOVATIONSPREIS-IT 2009“ nominiert. Collanos erreicht damit in der Kategorie „Unified Communications“, wie auch für die „Sonderauszeichnung Schweiz“ einen der ersten 3 Plätze. Die Sieger werden am 5. März, im Rahmen der offiziellen Preisverleihung auf der CeBIT bekanntgegeben.

Preise und Verfügbarkeit

Die Produkte von Collanos Software sind kostenfrei und können unter http://www.collanos.com heruntergeladen werden. Die Preise für die LumiMagic variieren je nach Umfang des Angebotes und beginnen bei CHF 199 zuzüglich einer monatlichen Pauschale von CHF 29.

Über Triple Play & more

Triple Play & more ist ein Zusammenschluss von Unternehmungen der Telekommunikations- und Multimediabranche. Ihre Tätigkeitsfelder umfassen Bau, Betrieb, Unterhalt und Finanzierung von Multimedia-Plattformen sowie Entwicklung und Vertrieb von Telekommunikations- und interaktiven Multimediadiensten, die auf  Telefonie-, Breitbandinternet- und TV-Endgeräten zusammengeführt werden. Neben den Unternehmungen der Translumina Gruppe (Translumina Networks, Comitas, Lambdastream, three60mobile) gehören Collanos Software, CTModule, NetModule, AareNet, MHM und BlueBit zu Triple Play & more.

Swiss startup Collanos Software receives prestigious award in San Diego

Collanos Software, the developer of Collanos Workplace that allows teams to collaborate electronically over the Internet, was a winner of the Red Herring 100 Global award. Red Herring, an international media company, thereby recognized Collanos as one of the world’s top 100 startups.  In addition to Collanos, the Swiss companies Axes Systems, CarryQuote, Museeka and Secu4 were also prize recipients.

Innovation, management, global strategy, financial performance, and environmental integration are the criteria Red Herring, a media company, uses to rate promising, up-and-coming companies in bestowing its Global award. The fact that Switzerland serves as a prime location for innovation was highlighted by five Swiss startups receiving the Red Herring 100 Global award. Besides Collanos, these included  Axes Systems, CarryQuote, Museeka and Secu4.

In professional circles, the awards are considered the ultimate prize for innovative technology and are thus highly coveted. Peter Helfenstein, CEO of Collanos Software, was highly pleased with the outcome and said, “Being recognized by Red Herring 2008 in Europe and now globally as one of the most promising companies makes us very proud. It proves to me that when it comes to the current international software and Internet markets, Zurich and Switzerland hold a place in the middle of the ‘virtual Silicon Valley’. The fact that four other Swiss companies besides Collanos received awards is testament to Switzerland’s role as a technology center.”

In December 2008, Collanos launched the latest version of Collanos Workplace 1.4 as a comprehensive unified collaboration solution. Shared use of information and project management processeswithin teams is now supplemented by new voice and video functions. Recently, the company announced it had registered its 25,000th active Collanos user.

For additional information about the Red Herring 100 Global, please go to http://www.herringevents.com/global08/index.html

Swiss startup nominated for prestigious international award

Collanos Software, the developer of Collanos Workplace that allows teams to collaborate electronically over the Internet, was nominated as a finalist for Red Herring 100 Global Award. In April of last year, Collanos Software was selected as a 2008 Red Herring 100 Europe winner. With five other Swiss startups besides Collanos being nominated for the award, Switzerland can truly be considered a prime location for innovative, up-and-coming companies.

In professional circles, the awards given out by Red Herring, an international media company, are considered the ultimate prize for innovative technology and are thus highly coveted. Red Herring 100 winners and finalists from North America, Europe, and Asia of the last three years are eligible for the prestigious “Global” award. Using an elaborate process and drawing from a pool of eligible, promising companies, Red Herring’s editors select 200 finalists for this award. Their assessments are based on quantitative as well as qualitative criteria, including financial performance, innovation, management, global strategy, and environmental integration. The finalists, elite executives, and venture capital decision makers will meet in San Diego, California from January 14-16, 2009 for the presentation of the Global 100 awards.

Red Herring nominated five other Swiss startups besides Collanos. These six nominations put Switzerland in 9th place – an outstanding ranking – on the Red Herring list for the Global 100, after the U.S., China, U.K., India, France, Germany, Finland and Canada.

Exceptionally pleased to have his company on the list of finalists, Peter Helfenstein, CEO of Collanos Software, said, “For us and five other emerging companies to represent our country and Europe in San Diego makes me very proud of Collanos and Switzerland as a technology location. Collanos’ nomination highlights our innovative strength and confirms course we have taken using our special, highly attractive freemium business model.”

In December 2008, Collanos launched the latest version of Collanos Workplace 1.4 as a comprehensive unified collaboration solution. Existing teamwork support services are now supplemented with new voice, video, and project management functions. The company also announced that it had registered its 22,000th active Collanos user.

For additional information about the Red Herring 100 Global, please go to: http://www.herringevents.com/global08/index.html

Collanos launches Collanos Workplace 1.4 with voice and video functions as well as expanded task and contact management capabilities.

Collanos releases the latest version of Collanos Workplace thereby making unified collaboration available to everyone. The existing teamwork collaboration services are now supplemented with new voice and video functions. To have fully supported, server-less, PC-based collaboration among decentralized project teams with access to the Internet, the only requirement is for all team members to install Collanos Workplace 1.4 on their computers.

Collanos Workplace version 1.4 adds new voice and video functions to its team collaboration suite. Decentralized project teams can jointly manage documents, plan tasks, coordinate courses of action, communicate by instant messaging – and now also by phone. This feature not only supports PC-to-PC calls, but also calls to regular phones. A push of a button can set up conference calls among team members at any time.

Voice and Video Integration

Collanos Workplace 1.4 lets team members maintain their network of international contacts, which include employees, partners, colleagues, and subject matter experts. Also, the Collanos user profile helps to locate new, potential team members in the network and invite them into team environments.

Collanos Contact List

Substantially expanded task management is supplemented with simple workflow functions and automatic reminders. A graphical time-line viewer gives every team member an overview of the status of the team’s activities.

Collanos Task Management Timeline

“Existing Collanos users will find a lot of new features and pleasant surprises,“ says Franco Dal Molin, founder and CTO of Collanos, adding, “Contents can be exchanged between team environments, new Collanos members can be invited directly into workspaces, and existing workspaces can be used as templates to set up additional teams.” The online Collanos Shop also offers additional fee-based premium collaboration and VoIP services, including a service to link into the telephone network provided by Collanos’ partner Translumina Networks.

Collanos recently celebrated its 20,000th active registered user. “Through the integration of voice services, Collanos is setting new standards for server-less, comprehensive support for Internet-based teamwork. And it will help to grow the number of Collanos users around the world even faster,” says Peter Helfenstein, CEO of Collanos Software.

Collanos Software received a Red Herring 100 Europe 2008 Award in Malta. The award places the Swiss start-up among the 100 most innovative private technology companies in the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East, Africa). Collanos was one of nine Swiss companies to bag one of the highly coveted awards.
Every year, writers from the globally active media company Red Herring pick their most exciting new technology companies, 100 of which are given a prestigious Red Herring 100 Europe Award.

Swiss start-ups are gaining ever greater recognition from Red Herring every year. In 2008, Switzerland produced nine of the 100 top companies netting an award. A year ago, seven Swiss companies won an award, and in 2006 the total was six. In addition to Collanos, the following Swiss companies won a Red Herring 100 Europe 2008 Award: Language Direct, LiberoVision, Museeka, ReVolt Technology, SECU4, sonic emotion, Starhome and Symfact. Compared with the number of German winners, this year and last year there were 12 winners, compared with six in 2006.

Collanos Software has qualified for final selection in the 2008 Red Herring 100 Europe! This award is presented each year to the 100 best private technology firms in the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East, Africa).

“This year’s impressive list of submissions from companies demonstrates Europe’s growing role as a major centre of innovation in the global technology sector,” said Red Herring Editor-in-Chief Joel Dreyfuss. “The exceptional accomplishments of European technology start-ups and entrepreneurs are a testament to the rapid advancements being made in building the European innovation ecosystem.”

Peter Helfenstein, CEO of Collanos Software, is pleased. “The number of Swiss companies selected as finalists for the Red Herring European 100, among them Collanos, shows that thanks to Swiss quality engineering, the willingness for collaboration across borders and the excellent institutional support for internationalization, Swiss start-ups are in a great position to prosper in the global market.”

Red Herring’s editorial staff rigorously evaluated several hundred private companies through a careful analysis of financial data and subjective criteria, including quality of management, execution of strategy, and dedication to research and development.

In 2007, Collanos was selected as a candidate for the Emerging Tech Award by Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal. Also in 2007 Collanos at CeBIT was awarded with the Innovation Prize ITK for Collanos Workplace and in 2008 for the new Collanos Phone.

Today, the new version of Collanos Workplace, 1.3, will be made available. The foundation of Collanos Workplace has been thoroughly optimized and the teamwork functions have been largely extended. Collanos now includes a Team Instant Messenger environment. In addition, Collanos Workplace 1.3 sets standards as to a comprehensive user task management. Team members can work with their own Windows, Mac or Linux systems, and the results will be available to the other team members on the internet –as simply and fast as using a server-based solution.

Collanos has boosted the technology behind its p2p (peer to peer) platform. Any online team member can ensure that all other team members, even if online only for a short period, have access to the most up-to-date workspace content.

The most noticeable improvement from a user´s perspective is the new task management function which is now accessible from all across Workplace. In an overview window, the user can view, track and maintain all the tasks across all his workspaces. In addition, a new Collanos Instant Messenger has been integrated into the teamwork environment. It allows team members to conduct dialogs, discuss issues and work out creative solutions by using the chatting function.

The extensions of version 1.3 will allow Collanos to develop and offer new features in the upcoming months. “The extensions of the peer-to-peer technology allow Collanos partners and service providers to offer value-added services”, explains Franco Dal Molin, president and CTO of Collanos Software. “These offerings include persistent, secure and reliable data storage, permanent team synchronization and the possibility to access workspace content from the browser. Messaging is planned to be augmented with team messaging and voice/video functionality. As in task management, other relevant team work tasks will be supported Workplace-wide, for example, in the form of team calendars and other tools for planning and change management.”

Workplace 1.3 is seen as the turning point for Collanos to establish itself clearly as the leading cross-company teamwork environment on the internet. Peter Helfenstein, CEO of Collanos Software, is convinced: “The solid foundation to support ad-hoc teamwork has been established. Teamwork has always been of great importance. In our globally networked world, effective teamwork has become the crucial factor of success. With Collanos Workplace 1.3, the required platform and tools are now available to everybody.”

The third largest Swiss Bank, Zürcher Kantonalbank (ZKB), comes on board as an additional institutional investor in Collanos Software, a Swiss-American start-up.

Experienced management, promising products, an innovative business model, and a compelling market with a demonstrable growing global user community were the key criteria for the decision. ZKB joins existing notable private and institutional investors American Ecosystem Ventures, and serial Swiss entrepreneurs Andreas Danuser (Swiss VoIP Pioneer) and Reto Hartinger.

The ZKB investment allows Collanos to continue the development of free teamwork and phone solutions and get ready for the launch of the much anticipated Premium services developed along with partner Translumina Networks. ZKB intends to take on a role as an active investor, as Oliver Schärli, Head of ZKB Start-up Finance, was quoted: “Collanos will for sure profit as well from our great networking with other institutional investors“ .

“We are excited that the thorough financial, technical and economical due diligence, conducted by Switzerland’s third largest bank’s Start-up Finance specialists, resulted in this outcome,” said Peter Helfenstein, CEO of Collanos Software. “Since we have been a certified CTI start-up company for a while now, ZKB’s decision further substantiates the quality and outlook of our venture. We are well prepared and confident that we will close our Series A financing round very soon”.

Collanos Software and beteo, two global Swiss start-ups, close ranks to share resources, expertise and partnerships. Collanos Software CEO Peter Helfenstein in addition takes on the COO position of beteo. Hence both Collanos and beteo can profit from the experiences and structures of both companies. Despite the intensive cooperation and the shared resources, beteo and Collanos will remain clearly distinctive companies.

Dieter Steiger, founder and CEO of beteo as well as Advisory Board Member of Collanos, claims that “Collanos Software is an exemplary Swiss global start-up. With the help of our management team and Peter Helfenstein as our new COO, we’ll position beteo similarly well on the international market. Of course, I’m thrilled at the prospect”.

The joint forces allow both companies to acquire a certain critical size faster and more easily. Marketing and alliance functions can be created in an earlier phase for both Europe and the U.S. Together, these two firms represent a far more interesting service and software partner for large American and European IT-companies such as HP, SAP, Apple or Sun Microsystems. It also makes them more attractive as a potential client for the near and offshore development partners in Ukraine and India. beteo and Collanos shoulder to shoulder can make joint and better use of their expertise in PR, web presence, product management and investments in infrastructure and back office.

“We are fully aware that reduced working hours of Peter Helfenstein may be a risk for both companies. However, we believe that the synergies and lower costs obtained, will fully justify this partnership”, says Franco Dal Molin, founder, president and CTO of Collanos. “beteo is an ambitious, fast growing and profitable company with unique expertise and potential. Being able to benefit from this is a privilege and a great opportunity for our team. Even though the targeted customer segments are different, both companies have to tackle basically the same tasks. Now, we can do so in a joint effort”.

Even with the intensive cooperation and the sharing of resources, beteo and Collanos will remain distinctly separate companies. Peter Helfenstein, CEO of Collanos Software and new COO of beteo, asserts that “despite a very close collaboration, the two global Swiss start-ups want to act autonomously to a large extent. Both are developing independently according to their own strategy. Yet, thanks to the new partner, they will do so more efficiently and effectively. We are open to alliances with additional Swiss start-ups that share global ambitions with us”.

About beteo

beteo is a visionary Switzerland based global software and consulting start-up. Its application lifecycle management solutions and services focus on keeping Enterprise software system environments flexibly and efficiently adaptable to the changing business needs of the future.

It was founded in February 2007 as a spin-off of a leading Swiss IT Governance service company and is based in Sarnen, Switzerland, and Berlin, Germany. Among its clients are well-known companies in Austria, Germany and Switzerland.