Collanos Blog

We are constantly being asked about new features, if and when they would be incorporated into the solution offering. Additionally, we are getting also many great suggestions and features requests, posted directly to the user forum.

In the hope of relieving you at least partly from your anxiety, we decided to compile a “short list” of areas that we will very likely address in the next one or two Collanos Workplace releases.

• Calendar, including simple synchronization with popular web calendar(s)
• File system integration (synchronizing folders of the operating system)
• Search functionality across all your workspaces
• Organizing and grouping of all your workspaces with keywords-based tagging or categories
• Saving objects like Emails, Contacts and Calendar Events from popular Groupware applications
• More transparent synchronization, show content replication details and new options to influence
• Support of multiple devices with only one unique Collanos Name
• Workspace templates, incl. template Web publishing to exchange with others
• Further improvements in task and project management
• Additional contact management and user profile improvements
• Expand historical change logs, to include all system objects and user actions

Please continue to tell us what you would like to see incorporated next in our releases. Feature requests stemming from real, daily, and intensive practical use take precedence from long theoretical “wish lists” of possible features. In any case, any and all ideas, suggestions and votes are welcome. Please post directly to the feature request section on Collanos Forum. Thank you for your contributions.

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 lanciert Collanos Workplace 1.4 mit Voice- und Videofunktionen sowie erweitertem Task- und Kontaktmanagement

Collanos gibt die neuste Version von Collanos Workplace frei und ermöglicht damit Unified Collaboration. Die gewohnten Dienste zur Unterstützung der Teamarbeit werden neu durch Voice- und Videofunktionen abgerundet. Um die serverlose Zusammenarbeit von verteilten Projektteams an Computern mit zeitweiligem Zugriff aufs Internet umfassend zu unterstützen, ist lediglich von allen Teammitgliedern Collanos Workplace 1.4 auf ihren Rechnern zu installieren.

Die Version Collanos Workplace 1.4 integriert neu Voice- und Video-Funktionen in den Teamarbeitsplatz. Verteilte Projektteams können gemeinsam Dokumente verwalten, Aufgaben planen sowie deren Ausführung koordinieren, sich mittels Instant Messaging abstimmen – und nun auch noch telefonieren. Dies nicht nur mit anderen Nutzern am Computer, sondern auch am Telefon. Auf Knopfdruck können jederzeit Konferenzgespräche mit den Teammitgliedern hergestellt werden.

Voice- und Video-Integration

Teamarbeiter können ihr globales Teamwork-Kontaktnetzwerk im Collanos Workplace 1.4 pflegen und ihre Kontakte zu Mitarbeitern, Partnern, Experten und Kollegen am Internet verwalten. Neue, potentielle Teammitglieder können dank Collanos Teamwork-Profil im Netzwerk gefunden und in die Teamumgebungen eingeladen werden.

Collanos Kontaktliste

Das stark ausgebaute Taskmanagement wurde mit einfachen Workflow-Funktionen ergänzt. Dank grafischer Sicht kann sich jedes Teammitglied jederzeit den Überblick über den Stand der Aktivitäten im Team verschaffen.

Collanos Task Management Graphik

„Für bestehende Collanos-Anwender gibt es viele Neuerungen und positive Überraschungen“, freut sich Collanos Gründer und CTO Franco Dal Molin, „Inhalte können zwischen Teamumgebungen ausgetauscht werden, neue Collanos-Mitglieder per Email direkt in Workspaces eingeladen und bestehende Workspaces als Templates für den Einsatz bei weiteren Teams genutzt werden.“ Über den Collanos Internet-Shop werden zudem laufend weitere kostenpflichtige Premium Collaboration- und VoIP-Services verfügbar gemacht. Beispielsweise ein Dienst für die Einbindung ins Telefonnetzwerk, bereitgestellt durch den Collanos Partner Translumina Networks.

Vor kurzer Zeit hat Collanos den Zwanzigtausendsten aktiven registrierten Benutzer gefeiert. „Mit der Voice Services Integration setzt Collanos neue Standards für die serverlose, umfassende Unterstützung der Teamarbeit am Internet“, meint Peter Helfenstein, CEO von Collanos Software, und blickt in die Zukunft: „Dies wird die Zahl der Collanos Nutzer rund um den Globus noch schneller anwachsen lassen.“

“Morgen komm ich später rein – für mehr Freiheit in der Festanstellung” (translated to English: “Tomorrow I will start later – for more freedom in permanent employment”)

As an average person, we spend between 70.000 und 80.000 hours of our lives sitting at the desk. Even though we are part of a knowledge society, we are using structures from industrial society. Sitting out core working hours and excessive overtime seem to stand for „real“ commitment. The economic damage caused by boredom and inefficiency at work is huge.

On August 14, the book “Morgen komm ich später rein – für mehr Freiheit in der Festanstellung” will be published by Campus. The author, Markus Albers, sees the answer to this problem in a playful, flexible, and mobile attitude towards work – let´s call it Easy Economy. Albers: “Go to the cinema during the day, play with your children, integrate hobbies and friends in your daily routine which so far has been dominated by your working life. Make your permanent employment a free-permanent employment. I think, we will witness the end of the office of today. ”

Collanos is also mentioned in the book. The author writes about an interview with me:

“Peter Helfenstein explains the advantages of working without being fixed to a precise point, which means mobility and globalization, increase in efficiency, potential savings, access to highly qualified workers worldwide, and accessibility to customers all over the world thanks to new communication channels. According to Helfenstein, technology is not the reason for this development, but a tool to meet enterprise requirements that have existed long before: We must be in a position to contact anybody, at any time, from anywhere, and collaborate with our customers and contact persons on a flexible, economic and delay-free basis. In view of globalization and rapidly growing competition, 9-to-5 will be an out-dated concept, a competitive disadvantage. Helfenstein sees the New Economy as technology hype, a period when technological prospects offered more than customers wanted. “But today, enterprises, staff members and consumers have realized the advantages of globalization, mobility and flexibility, and now we need technologies that meet these requirements.”

In the new working world outlined above, a slightly different type of employee is required: ”Extroverted personalities actively establishing contact with the outside world and feeling inspired by doing so, are the ones to best fit into this model. Therefore, I am not surprised that this development is advancing faster in the USA.”

Inevitably, flexibility, mobility, and home office mean to widely do without informal communication, get-togethers during coffee break, smokers´corner, or common lunchtime. Helfenstein: “This might weaken identification with team and company and should be balanced by targeted measures, for example fixed dates for team afternoons, occasional work together with all employees at one location, or video conferences which like an intercom system permanently link all employees together worldwide.” Partly, you may be able to compensate physical separation by more frequent virtual meetings, but „ once in a while, you should talk to each other face-to-face. “Our American co-workers come to see us in Switzerland at regular intervals for one or two weeks, and the Swiss travel from USA to India to meet their collegues: the positive effect is noticeable for about three months, afterwards misunderstandings in communication become more frequent again. ”

The Campus-Verlag comments ‘Morgen komm ich später rein’ as follows: “This book harbours a promise which reads: You don´t have to go on working as before. And this book wants to convey a vision. The vision that thanks to modern technology and changing social values, our work will be characterized by more freedom and self-determination than that of our parents´generation. But this does not mean that we have to cut back on performance and career. On the contrary, you would feel more productive, relaxed and competent when communicating with superiors and other staff members. It suggests that we would finally be able to combine our job and your leisure time in a way that we would never have thought of some years ago. And even that, en passant, we might become happier individuals.”

Dr. Wilhelm Bauer at Fraunhofer Institut für Arbeitswirtschaft und Organisation says: “Is this real work – sitting with your notebook in a café or in your garden? The ‘Easy Economy’ as outlined by Markus Albers promises a world of work that is marked by more independence for permanent employees as well as creativity and motivation. The development depicted in the book is sustainable and irreversible. In retrospect, we will eventually refer to it as the revolution of work.”

Markus Albers is political scientist and journalist. He lives in Berlin as a free-lance author reporting for magazines such as Vanity Fair and Monocle. Before this, he did journalistic work for stern, SPIEGEL, SZ-Magazin and Welt am Sonntag. He held the position of directing journalist with the German edition of Vanity Fair. The biography of his career shows a repeated change between free and employed occupations, so the subject of his book also reflects a subject of his life.

More information about Easy Economy and Markus Albers

Article from Markus Albers on the concept of Easy Economy

http://www.markusalbers.com

“Morgen komm ich später rein – für mehr Freiheit in der Festanstellung”

Zwischen 70.000 und 80.000 Stunden im Leben verbringt der Durchschnittsmensch am Schreibtisch. Doch mitten in der Wissensgesellschaft arbeiten wir mit Strukturen aus der Industriegesellschaft: Abgesessene Kernarbeitszeit und exzessive Überstunden gelten als Beweis für “echtes” Engagement. Der volkswirtschaftliche Verlust durch Langeweile und Ineffizienz im Job ist enorm.

Die Lösung dieses Dilemmas liegt für Markus Albers, Autor des Buches “Morgen komm ich später rein – für mehr Freiheit in der Festanstellung”, das am 14. August um Campus-Verlag erscheint, in einer verspielten, flexiblen und mobilen Arbeitsauffassung – nennen wir sie Easy Economy. Albers: “Gehen Sie tagsüber ins Kino, spielen Sie mit ihren Kindern, integrieren Sie Hobbys und Freunde in Ihren Tagesablauf, der bislang nur vom Berufsleben geprägt war. So wird aus der Festanstellung eine Freianstellung. Wir werden es erleben – das Ende des Büros, wie wir es kennen.”

Auch Collanos kommt in “Morgen komm ich später rein” vor. Über ein Interview zwischen ihm und mir schreibt der Autor:

“Peter Helfenstein erklärt u.a. die Vorteile der ortlosen Arbeitsweise, nämlich Mobilität und Globalisierung, Effizienzsteigerung, Sparpotenziale, der Zugang zu qualifizierten Arbeitskräften weltweit und die zusätzliche Nähe zu Kunden überall auf der Welt dank neuer Kommunikationskanäle. Technologie sieht Helfenstein dabei nicht als Ursache, sondern als Werkzeug, Unternehmensbedürfnisse zu befriedigen, die vorher bereits existierten: ‘Wir müssen in der Lage sein, mit jedem, jederzeit, von überall arbeiten sowie flexibel, günstig und zeitverzugslos mit unseren Kunden und Ansprechpartnern kollaborieren zu können. Durch die Globalisierung und den immer stärkeren Wettbewerb wird 9-to-5 eine Illusion, ein Wettbewerbsnachteil.’ Die New Economy sei zwar ein Technologie-Hype gewesen, so Helfenstein. In dieser Zeit hätten die technologischen Möglichkeiten mehr geboten als die Kunden wollten: “Aber heute haben Unternehmen, Mitarbeiter und Konsumenten die Vorteile der Globalisierung, der Mobilität und Flexibilität erkannt. Nun braucht es die Technologien, dies zu nutzen.”

Dazu bedürfe es zum Teil auch eines anderen Mitarbeitertypus:”Extrovertierte Persönlichkeiten, die den Kontakt nach aussen aktiv suchen, dadurch motiviert werden, können besser mit solchen Modellen umgehen. Für mich ist es deshalb nicht verwunderlich, wenn in den USA die Adoption schneller vor sich geht.”

Durch Flexibilität, Mobilität und Homeoffice falle natürlich die informelle Kommunikation, das Zusammentreffen in der Kaffeepause, der Raucherecke, oder beim Mittagessen nahezu weg, so Helfenstein: “Dies kann die Identifikation mit Team und Firma reduzieren und muss entsprechend durch gezielte Massnahmen kompensiert werden, wie Teamnachmittage, Arbeit an einem Standort mit allen, oder Videotechnologie, die wie eine Gegensprechanlage alle Mitarbeiter weltweit permanent verbindet.”  Physische Trennung könne zwar durch stärkeres virtuelles Zusammenkommen kompensiert werden. “Man muss sich allerdings zwischendurch doch mal sehen”, so Helfenstein. “Die Amerikaner besuchen uns regelmässig für eine bis zwei Wochen in der Schweiz, die Schweizer die Mitarbeiter von den USA bis Indien: Es hält etwa drei Monate, danach werden die Missverständnisse bei der Kommunikation wieder grösser.”

Der Campus-Verlag schreibt über ‘Morgen komm ich später rein’: “Dieses Buch birgt ein Versprechen. Es lautet: Sie müssen nicht so weiterarbeiten wie bisher. Und dieses Buch möchte eine Vision vermitteln. Dass wir dank moderner Technik und eines Wandels gesellschaftlicher Werte freier und selbstbestimmter arbeiten werden als die Generation unserer Eltern. Dass wir dabei keine Abstriche im Job machen müssen, was Leistung und Karriere angeht. Sondern im Gegenteil Kollegen und Vorgesetzten produktiver, gelassener und souveräner begegnen. Dass wir endlich Beruf und Freizeit auf eine Weise vereinen können, die noch vor wenigen Jahren undenkbar schien. Und dass wir so vielleicht – ganz automatisch – zu glücklicheren Menschen werden.”

Und Dr. Wilhelm Bauer vom Fraunhofer Institut für Arbeitswirtschaft und Organisation, sagt dazu: “Mit dem Notebook im Café oder im Garten sitzen – kann das Arbeit sein? Mit der ‘Easy Economy’ skizziert Markus Albers eine Arbeitswelt, die durch grosse Freiheiten für Festangestellte sowie durch Kreativität und Motivation gekennzeichnet ist. Die im Buch skizzierten Entwicklungen sind nachhaltig und unumkehrbar. In der Retrospektive werden wir von einer Revolution der Arbeit sprechen.

Markus Albers ist Politologe und Journalist. Er lebt als freier Autor in Berlin und berichtet für Zeitschriften wie Vanity Fair und Monocle aus aller Welt. Zuvor schrieb er für stern und SPIEGEL, das SZ-Magazin sowie die Welt am Sonntag. Zuletzt arbeitete er als geschäftsführender Redakteur der deutschen Vanity Fair. Seine eigene Arbeitsbiografie wechselte stets zwischen festen und freien Beschäftigungen, das Thema seines Buches ist damit auch ein Lebensthema.

http://www.freianstellung.de
http://www.markusalbers.com

Windows Vista is not well adopted, Apple’s next OS will not offer new features and Linux Desktops, at maximum, are a functional copy of the latter. Since the idea of using the Personal Computer as virtual office desktop no real innovation has happened. BeOS, the multimedia operating system, failed. And nowadays the office desktop metaphor for the personal computer is commoditized, as innovation it is not attractive anymore to users. The concept of the individual computer itself gets obsolete.

The traditional personal computer OS is going to die
Operating systems are going to die if they stick with these old fashioned concepts. Having an own computer with own software, own data management and the ability for programming was power in the hands of users at the time of mainframes, made users independent. Today users working differently want something else. The power lies with networks, networks of companies or global networks – internet and cloud computing. A big part of our work depends on others providing us with information or of work results they prepare in parallel. But the PC is not really designed for this. All such support requires additional programs that support such a way of parallel work.

Email is inundated
Electronic mailboxes have accelerated our work. But we could work even faster if mailboxes were not that clumpsy and trashed. In full email inboxes users get lost. Relations between mails are hardly recognizable. And Instant messaging is no answer to this problem either. It supports a different communication need since everything needs to be discussed immediately. Instant messaging is more like an enhancement to email.

But what do we need? Today’s metaphor is not the desktop anymore, it is the communities we are part of. The computer should be the virtual representation of these communities, within and beyond companies and disciplines.

Collaboration solutions are just a crutch
Todays solutions to the above needs are in collaboration tools which is the reason I am invested in Collanos. All documents are shared in workspaces, messages are project related and for this reason 100% spam free. What’s more, Collanos is free, easy to maintain and use.

However, collaboration tools are only a crutch for Operating Systems. They are only needed as long as the community metaphor is not an integral part of the operating system. They should not exist as separate programs. Users should not need to download such software and invite others to communities – this must work differently, much more integrated.

Collaboration needs to be an integral part of processes
Collaboration on operating systems or at the program level is only the first step. Processes must get collaborative. I am developing a new business software. It masters collaboration on the level of the business process. People/team members are embedded in the process – just where and when their information or documents are needed or when they need to receive information – even if they were never involved in the overall process. This essentially accelerates and facilitates work.

The next generation of PC OSs will not make it
I am confident the next Microsoft operating system will not succeed as a collaborative OS and thus Collanos and its competitors will continue to gain traction. Google brings collaboration into programs and by doing so it will outdistance Microsoft – regardless of the rich office desktop features they may have. This new winning category of software will be enhanced by collaborative process software!

Reto Hartinger, IT journalist and serial start-up entrepreneur, is a Swiss internet pioneer and expert. He founded and manages internet-briefing.ch, the most important Swiss internet community.

Many European organizations (from small start-ups to large corporations) are outsourcing their software development, testing, and maintenance tasks to specialized providers in Eastern Europe and the CIS. Because of the geographical proximity, this outsourcing model is often called “nearshoring”.

Collanos is also applying and benefiting from this distributed working model. We are managing all our software development processes from our headquarters in Zurich, but outsource work to suppliers in Ukraine, Bulgaria, India, and other destinations. Our experiences so far have been mostly positive, but of course there are always aspects that can be improved. Collanos is currently preparing for expansion steps and we need to further grow our software development teams.

The whole discussion is not about cheaper labor costs only. In fact, the lower the direct costs get (read: the farther East one moves), the higher the indirect costs typically get, including reduced overlap of time zones, bigger travel distances when visiting, more problems due to cultural differences, and others.

To better share our own experiences with others, and to hear from other buyers about theirs, we have created a new group on the Xing business networking platform. The goal of the group is to represent the interests of the buyers’ side, by sharing practical experiences, exchanging tips and advises, bringing transparency into the practices of this industry, learning from each other, collecting best practices, avoiding typical pitfalls, and so forth.

The group is exclusive to European professionals in the software industry which are buying services in Eastern Europe. Outsourcing providers looking for new customers will not be allowed to join the group. With this narrow focus and membership profile, the group will be able to build-up trust between its members and become a highly relevant resource for many European professionals.

To join the group (you must be a Xing member to do so), please visit the Xing Group “European Buyers of Software Development Outsourcing (Nearshoring to the East)“.

We look forward to meet other professionals outsourcing their software development work to Eastern European providers, and valuable exchanges of experiences. Please feel free to forward this information to interested colleagues. Thank you.

UPDATE:

There is also a related discussion on LinkedIn Answers: “Nearshoring Software Development to Eastern Europe”. Great and valuable answers indeed.

For some years, several approaches to efficient work in teams, generally called Collaboration, have been initiated, from e-mail and groupware up to Intranet team portals or chat solutions. Some of them are well-established now, for others it is – at best – still a long way to get there. If you consider the challenge of collaboration from the users`point of view, it becomes quickly apparent that there is still a want for improved concepts.

Staff members working in teams within their company are comparably well off – at least if the company structure is a solid one, for example implementing a Lotus Notes/Domino infrastructure. Version 8 of Lotus Notes/Domino together with the Notes-activities has made a great leap towards a flexible collaboration, even though it remains restricted to comparably inflexible Enterprise IT infrastructures. However, mobile users and smaller companies with largely virtual structures as well as temporarily implemented virtual structures for work beyond enterprise boundary, are facing a completely different scenario.

In this area, the typical collaboration tool is e-mail. Everybody is familiar with overflowing mail boxes, and hardly anyone manages to handle the endless amount of attachments efficiently. All things considered, e-mail is an important medium, but simply unsuitable for a great deal of tasks.

Additional chat programs and other mechanisms add to the miserable situation that more and more tools are available without really simplifying communication, just because there are to many different systems and methods. Skype chats are a nice invention, with the results being saved in a log file, but scarcely anybody will ever read these log files.

Looking at the problem with a view to what a typical mobile user working in virtual structures really needs, it becomes quite obvious that many of the standard approaches do not work. The number of users affected by this deficiency is rather large, comprising freelance consultants, small innovative companies, research groups and many others. In these scenarios, solutions requiring their own server infrastructure are the first to be out of the race, for such infrastructures need to be built up and managed by people well-acquainted with this job – who are mostly missing. Additionally, more specific problems are involved as the right bandwidth for accessing the own server, or the higher provider fees for connections providing a fixed IP address – not to mention security challenges. This means to exclude all systems like Lotus Domino or Microsoft Exchange – the latter anyway being rather a mail than a collaboration tool – from a possible selection.

E-mail alone definitely is not capable of covering this demand. WebDAV and various kinds of Internet filing tools are likewise unsuitable, alone for security reasons. So what else is on offer? Hosted Microsoft-Sharepoint solutions and other web-based collaboration infrastructures might solve the problem, but in the first place, hosting is rarely a cheap option, and the needed administration effort is considerable. Finally, this concept reaches the end of its potency for people sitting aboard a train badly missing a stable internet connection. For mobile users it is not at all a satisfying option to only work web-based. But at least, web solutions score with platform independence.

The requirements of the user group in question must be met by a tool that allows offline working – and can be used on various platforms. What these users need is a solution which by demand can also be accessed via web, particularly to integrate staff members from bigger enterprises who are involved in a common project and have to follow specific IT rules not allowing them to install a local application. The ideal solution should enable the user to exchange documents, manage calendars, maintain tasks and do other basic work – in the most simple way. If more than one computer is used, identical data should be accessible on all of them. Add some integrated chat or even VoIP functions for communication within virtual teams, and you will get a tool that supports the mobile virtual user much better than e-mail or the like.

Collaboration vendors have become aware of this demand. Collanos Workplace offered by Collanos clearly addresses this focus. Some of the needed functions as platform independence und offline capability are already implemented, others are found in the Roadmap, from VoIP integration and hosted online services to allow browser-based working, up to a simplified use on more than one computer. The whole system is characterized by a user-friendly look-and-feel. Another solution positioning itself in this market segment is Microsoft Office Groove. However, it rather represents a supplement to Microsoft Exchanger Server – thus catching up with Lotus Notes/Domino 8. And there is no platform independence.

This does not mean that e-mailing will be completely off-limits for users in question. But in many scenarios, information access will be much easier than before – and serve the large group of mobile people working in virtual structures in a more adequate way.

The author, Martin Kuppinger, is IT analyst and founder of the analyst firm Kuppinger Cole + Partner. He also works as a freelance journalist and has written more than 50 IT books in the last few years.

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.

In earlier blogs like Disruptive Innovation at Work and Gartner Prediction Supports the Collanos Business Model I wrote about our progressive go-to-market strategy entering new markets for collaboration, and our starting point to ride the most recent consumerization wave across enterprise boundaries.

Two inspiring new blog articles and their discussion threads seem to confirm our approach:

• Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail, in his blog The Black Wire and the White Wire connects a second ethernet cable to his business laptop kicking off an IT “civil war”.

On my desk at work I have two ethernet cables. One is black and one is white. The black one is connected to our corporate network. I use that one when I want to print things. I could also use it for Internet access and stuff, but I don’t because the corporate network blocks a number of ports, including those used for Skype and Second Life. It’s also pretty slow.

The white cable, meanwhile, is a standard consumer-grade DSL connection to the Internet, with nothing blocked at all. Our local IT staff installed it by popular demand, possibly without checking with headquarters (we love our local IT staff!). It’s fast. I use it all the time.

Consumerization of enterprise IT at work…

• Jason Hiner, Executive Editor at TechRepublic, in “The six consumer technologies that are destroying traditional IT ” explicitely sees p2p Collanos Workplace being adopted even by corporate IT supported by some pressure coming from consumerization.

That doesn’t mean IT should necessarily abandon P2P software altogether. It can often prove extremely useful and efficient. For example, Collanos software can be used for sharing and collaborating on documents between various users in a team or workgroup.

Disrupting the collaboration market outside the enterprise platform and being brought in through enterprise doors via consumerization seems like a promising new business strategy – not only for Collanos.