On my way to Saint Barth!!

Dear colleagues, friends, partners, competitors, customers, readers,

As you know, I am waiting for this moment for quite a while!

We have the chance again to visit our “second home-sweet-home”. I cannot say how far I am happy to be there with my wife and my son. To have the time for them. To think about something else as the business and Innoveo (although I love that ;-).

No holidays since last August, quite a long time…

So a good chance for a “hardware” reset, a re-load and recharging.

I wish you all a very good time, take care!

PS: yes, I should be able to publish some pictures & stories from *the* island ;-) Stay tuned!

Laurent is a Certified ScrumMaster!

As you may know, we are more and more using Scrum as a team-based framework for developing our Skye® standard software product (front-end solution for insurances) at Innoveo.

What is Scrum? (ScrumAlliance definition)

Scrum: A team-based framework to develop complex systems and products.

Scrum is an iterative, incremental framework for developing any product or managing any work. It allows teams to deliver a potentially shippable set of functionality every iteration, providing the agility needed to respond to rapidly changing requirements.

The Scrum framework constantly challenges its users to focus on improvement, and its Sprints provide the stability to address the ever-changing needs that occur in any project.

These characteristics have led to Scrum becoming the most popular method in the world of agile software development.

We are consequently very proud to inform you that Laurent Kempé, who is acting as our Innoveo ScrumMaster besides being our internal “Scrum champion”, has successfully passed his ScrumMaster certification!

Congratulation to Laurent for this nice step and recognition.

Next step is now to apply for the next level: Certified Scrum Practitioner, as shown below (ScrumAlliance certification process):

cross-posted on the Innoveo blog

MVVM Light Toolkit V2

via Laurent and the Innoveo Blog

Cool stuff!

At Innoveo Solutions we are using .NET and WPF for our Innoveo Skye® Editor application. Skye® Editor is a distribution channel editor targeting business people letting them edit and configure their insurance products.

From the beginning we have adopted the Model-View-ViewModel architecture. Having our solution growing we were facing the issue of having our ViewModels dependency growing too. Some ViewModel became too much dependent of others. This was obvious in our unit tests whose complexity to setup were growing too. It was time to find a solution to decouple the ViewModels.

The solution came out after a discussion with Laurent Bugnion, the famous author of MVVM Light Toolkit. At that time we used the V1 that already helped a lot in this decoupling.

Now with MVVM Light Toolkit V2 it is even better with the new Messenger API. What we also really appreciated in comparison to other frameworks is that it is really light and the ability to open and edit the user interface into Expression Blend.

So Thank you Laurent for this GREAT framework and I looking forward for V3!

I also would like to thank my managers at Innoveo Solutions who understand Open Source and the need to have people contributing to Open Source projects, even during their professional working time. A Win-Win situation and not just a one way benefit as often.

Thanks also from my side to Laurent Bugnion, great work and contribution!

Innoveo 2nd anniversary

We could celebrate today our 2nd anniversary (already!) at Innoveo.

As usual, some great time with great people.

On top, we had a super weather in a super restaurant (Seerose - “we take care of nice people”).

A bit of time for us, after some extremely intensive and successful months!

Tomorrow, back to business!

Adcubum and Innoveo agree to a strategic partnership!

We are very happy to announce that we, at Innoveo, could agree to a strategic partnership with Adcubum, a Swiss product software company also focused on the insurance market, and developing a very complementary product, adcubum SYRIUS® (back-office), to Innoveo Skye® (front-office).

A step-by-step process, very solid, between the two companies, integrating both Boards of Directors, Executive Management Teams and operational experts, to be able to mature the cooperation model on a strategic and product levels. The first operational activities have started for exactly one year in September 2008, with the first contacts in spring 2008.

And, it is always better to announce this kind of partnership, when both partners have already won together a customer, which is the case for us ;-)

Some words about Adcubum

Adcubum was founded in 1998, is privately held, with more than 100 people, and a capital of 7.5 million CHF. Our colleagues have so far achieved 60% market coverage in Switzerland (health insurance) and 100% in Slovakia (social security) with adcubum SYRIUS®.

They are now expanding their activities to the important markets of Germany and Eastern Europe, and to the Property & Casualty (P&C) lines of business.

 

PRESS RELEASE

 Adcubum and Innoveo contract a strategic partnership to integrate the multi-channel distribution solution Innoveo Skye® with adcubum SYRIUS®.

St. Gallen, 30th September 2009 - Adcubum and Innoveo intensify their co-operation and agree to a product and strategic partnership. Goal of this agreement is the seamless integration of the multi-channel distribution solution Innoveo Skye® in the insurance core solution adcubum SYRIUS® as an optional module. Therewith, their customers are in a position to use the software for all lines of business and to holistically support respectively control their products and services sales. Moreover, with this co-operation Adcubum and Innoveo consolidate their complementary competences and experience in the insurance industry.

Like adcubum SYRIUS®, Innoveo Skye® is based on a state-of-the-art scalable 4-tier-architecture and is easily embedded in any portal solution. Innoveo Skye® comprises all lines of business in the insurance industry (health insurance, property and casualty insurance, life insurance) and supports various back-office systems simultaneously. Furthermore, Innoveo Skye® is capable of multi-channel operations, which enable insurance companies to quickly and consistently offer new products and services via different channels like branches, agencies, insurance brokers or via the Internet.

"The partnership with Adcubum allows to offer our complementary expertise and insurance solutions in one integrated product", says Nick Stefania, Managing Partner of Innoveo. "Customers benefit of a reduced time-to-market for their insurance products and we enable them to offer all insurance products and services for every distribution channel with one single module."

"We are already working together intensively with Innoveo in a customer project", says René Janesch, member of the executive board of Adcubum. "Insurance companies seek more and more for an end-to-end solution supporting the continuous process from the back-office management to the multi-channel distribution. Hence, the current point in time is most convenient for such a collaboration. Above all, we are able to considerably strengthen our know-how in the property and casualty insurance market."

Press release English / German

Innoveo corporate fact sheet English

 

Adcubum AG
Adcubum is a leading Swiss software manufacturer in the international insurance business. The core solution adcubum SYRIUS® is a modularly built back-office system for health, accident and property and casualty insurances based on the Java Platform Enterprise Edition (Java EE) technology. The foundation for the successful company history was laid in St. Gallen in 1998. Since then, the product has been continuously enhanced according to customer and market requirements. At present the company employs more than 100 high qualified and specialised experts. Multiple millions of insured persons with more than 30 million claims are administrated by the core solution adcubum SYRIUS® - tendency rising.

Further information under: www.adcubum.com

 

Innoveo Solutions AG
Innoveo emerged as an independent software manufacturer from a spin-out of the Helvetia Group in 2007. It is characterized by a unique combination of technology expertise and insurance industry knowledge. The SOA/Java EE based agile insurance front-office system Innoveo Skye® is based on more than 12 years of experience in the implementation of flexible distribution systems for all lines of business as well as in the integration of any back-office and CRM systems as well as portals. In an increasingly diversified market a consistent, per distribution channel and insurance product configurable solution offers crucial strategic possibilities, considerable time savings as well as remarkable cost efficiency for the launch of new products.

Further information under: www.innoveo.com

Innoveo is a member of the Oracle PartnerNetwork

Innoveo Solutions enjoys its new membership to the Oracle PartnerNetwork, which is illustrating the long and successful deployment of our insurance frontend solution – Innoveo Skye® integrating Oracle databases.

Our partnership with Oracle helps us to leverage our expertise and build on the strong foundation that Oracle's technology provides.

Innoveo news.

Cross-posted on the Innoveo blog.

Cédric nominated to the EOS Directory Advisory Board

I am very proud to announce that Cédric Walter, one of our colleague and founding member of Innoveo, is nominated to the EOS Directory (Enterprise Open Source Directory) Advisory and Expert Board. Cédric is a very well-known contributor of the Joomla community since 2004.

EOS Directory is a great catalog of more than 350 open source projects, that are listed, described and analyzed. It is today the leading online platform to help enterprises and organizations identify and evaluate Open Source technologies. Initially launched by Optaros, about two years ago, the platform has been recently handed over by Bruno von Rotz, initial sponsor of the initiative, well known Open Source specialist, and one of our Innoveo Board Member.

In support to strengthen the neutral approach to ratings and selection of the technologies, the new EOS Directory Advisory and Expert Board has been established over the last weeks.

The Advisory and Expert Board will be both instrumental in guiding the future development of the EOS Directory Platform as well as in making sure that the content is accurate, relevant and fairly represented. (Source: EOS Directory Blog)

Congratulations to Cédric!

More Information on Cédric’s blog and the EOS Directory blog.

Cross-posted on the Innoveo Blog.

Mark this day :-)

Yesterday (Thursday) was an absolutely important and central milestone in the life of our company - Innoveo.

I am very proud, totally exciting for the coming steps, exhausted, and also in a way - relieved. First confirmations that our vision, strategy, and tactics are not sooo bad ;-)

As usual, a bit of luck, plus a great help and support from very smart people (hello René), and from our Team!

I remember a thought of one of my former boss, saying that:

Good stuff needs time to mature

This is absolutely true ;-) I would just extend it a bit:

Good stuff needs time AND a lot of energy to mature

Nick, mate, a big thought in your direction, you did such a great job!

Coming challenges are big, again, but first … there are coming! And second, they are super interesting!

A last one now, about “vision” :-)

(© Despair, Inc)

 

But gosh, now, I just want to sit down with a good grappa, and to appreciate this moment.

LinkedIn vs. Xing

Fast comparison between LinkedIn and Xing.

Xing

• November 1, 2003 - 5 1/2 years old
• 7 million members
• 26’000 groups
• 16 languages
• 600’000 paying members
• 240 employees from 22 nations

LinkedIn

• May 5, 2003 - 6 years old
• 40 million members, thereof 10 million in Europe and 800’000 in France
• 300’000 user groups
• 4 languages
• 345 employees

My LinkedIn profile (member since March 2004, i.e. more than 5 years)

My Xing profile (member since November 2005).

The Innoveo LinkedIn profile and the Innoveo Xing profile.

Cross-posted on the Innoveo Blog.

Software maintenance

via Judith Hurwitz

Judith is bringing, as usual, interesting feeds for thoughts, this time in the field of software maintenance fees.

[…] As the world slowly moves to cloud computing for economic reasons there will be a major impact on how companies pay for software. Salesforce.com has indeed proven that companies are willing to trust their sales and customer data to a Software as a Service vendor. These customers are also willing to pay per user or per company yearly fees to rent software. Does this mean that they are no longer paying maintance fees? My answer would be no. It is all about accounting and economics. Clearly, Salesforce.com spends a lot of money adding functionality to its application and someone pays for that. So, what part of that monthly or yearly per user fee is allocated to maintaining the application? Who knows? And I am sure that it is not one of those statistics that Salesforce.com or any other Software as a Service or any Platform as a Service vendor is going to publish. Why? Because these companies don’t think of themselves as traditional software companies. They don’t expect that anyone will ever own a copy of their code.

The bottom line is that software will never be good enough to never need maintenance. Software vendors — whether they sell perpetual licenses or Software as a Service– will continue to charge for maintance. The reality is that the concrete idea of the maintenance fee will evolve over time. Customers will pay it but they probably won’t see it on their bills. Nevertheless, the impact on traditional software companies will be dramatic over time and a lot of these companies will have to rethink their strategies. Many software companies have become increasingly dependent on maintenance revenue to keep revenue growing. I think that Marc Benioff has started a conversation that will spark a debate that could have wide ranging implications for the future of not only maintenance but of what we think of as software.

Interesting!

Cross-posted on the Innoveo Blog.

Oracle buys Sun

via Between the Lines

As everybody already knows, Oracle is buying Sun for about $7.4 billion, including Sun’s debt ($9.50 a share in cash). Some interesting thoughts from Larry Dignan, Editor in Chief of ZDNet.

• [Oracle] added that the acquisition of Java “is the most important software Oracle has ever acquired.”
• Oracle also becomes a full-fledged hardware player.
• Oracle and Sun have been long-time partners. […] “More Oracle databases run on the Solaris Sparc than any other system,” said Ellison, noting Linux was second. “We’ll engineer the Oracle database and Solaris operating system together. With Sun we can make all components of the IT stack integrated and work well.”
• Oracle with Sun appears to be the Apple of the enterprise. Indeed, Oracle President Charles Phillips noted that the company is looking to offer everything from apps to the disk.
• Oracle’s stack of IT stuff now includes:
  • Java;
  • Solaris;
  • Enterprise applications ranging from CRM to ERP to business intelligence;
  • The database (Oracle and MySQL);
  • The middleware;
  • The storage hardware;
  • Cloud computing services;
  • And servers.
• Art of War approach:
  • Oracle gets to annoy IBM—and own Java—over a few pennies a share more than Big Blue was willing to pay.
  • Oracle gets to kill MySQL. There’s no way Ellison will let that open source database mess with the margins of his database. MySQL at best will wither from neglect. In any case, MySQL is MyToast.
  • Sun has a big installed base. All the better to upsell applications into.
• Sun was relatively cheap compared to Oracle’s other acquisitions. The price was above the Hyperion buyout but below PeopleSoft and Siebel.
• Oracle saves Sun management from what could have been a complete debacle following the IBM takeover talks. The Sun board had been split on the IBM deal. Today, it’s all roses.

The official Oracle press release can be found here.

It is clear that this deal will change the IT landscape quite massively. And the consolidation is definitely not finished…

Cross-posted on the Innoveo Blog.

Saint Barth – Part III

TechHeadBrothers and Innoveo are now well represented in Saint Barth ;-)

What about opening a subsidiary there for both?

Gosh, 37 years old!

Yes, today is my birthday. 37 years old.

Thanks to Laurent and Mathieu for their wishes via Twitter.

And thanks to Stephen, Thomas, Patrick, Robert, Géraldine for their nice words via Facebook.

And thanks to all my friends and colleagues who have sent me a mail, as Martine, Doris, Bruno, Manu, Olivier, Andreas, Salah.

And thanks to all, my friends and family, who has contacted me per telephone today.

And thanks to my wife and son, Laurence and Julien, for their surprise this morning :-)

Special thanks to Martinique for her Frangipani (picture taken in Senegal).

And to the Xing team for their virtual birthday cake ;-)

From an Innoveo CI/CD point of view, Andreas (our designer) won the price ;-)

A year more, but thanks to everybody, a nice and brilliant day!

PS: yesterday evening, we had a cool dinner at “La Table de Louise”. Very nice local, very friendly and professional service, great food, and … 3 birthdays to celebrate the same evening at 3 different tables :-)

Comparison of Open Source Application Servers

I have found - by accident really! – a very interesting presentation on SlideShare concerning the different leading Open Source Application Servers on the market.

This very solid evaluation is proposed by OpenLogic.

I have summarized parts of it below.

Goal of the presentation /

Help you choose which open source application servers to evaluate more thoroughly:

• JBoss
• GlassFish
• dm Server
• Geronimo
• Tomcat

Which open source application servers are your using or considering using /

J2EE Didn't Fill the Need /

• EJB 2 is difficult to use
  • Many people consider it unnecessary difficult
  • Entity Beans were especially problematic
  • But even session beans earned bad reputations
• The Open Source community responds
  • OSS packages mitigating the problem
    • Hibernate instead of Entity Beans
    • Spring as a component model
  • They were very successful in the marketplace
• Many Spring/Hibernate applications
  • Required only Tomcat to run but also work in full app servers

When Tomcat Is Not Enough /

• Tomcat doesn't support
  • JMS
  • EJBs
  • Other...
• Enterprises need integration
  • The more mature the app is, the more likely it is to be added
• Add-ons
  • It was possible to add things that Tomcat was missing
  • But this became a “build your own Frankenstein” exercise

Java Enterprise Edition in the Meantime /

• Weaknesses in EJB 2 model were recognized
• Work on new specification was completed
  • J2EE → JEE 5
  • EJB 2 → EJB 3
    • Entity Beans → JPA
• EJB 3
  • Simple annotation-based programming model
  • Not everybody adopted EJB 3
• JEE 6 will embrace modularity
  • Profiles, including web profile

Choices in 2007 /

• Use Spring
  • Start with full app server
  • Start with Tomcat, build from there
• Use EJB 3
  • Requires full app servers
• Full application server
  • Pros – everything you are likely to need, could use EJB
  • Cons – complexity, might use more resources then Tomcat
• Tomcat
  • Pros – small, simple, low resource usage
  • Cons – you might need to build your own app server, no EJB

OSGi /

• Started in 1999
  • Recently got a lot of exposure
  • In particular, R 4.1
    • JSR-294
• OSGi brings
  • Dependency management and modularity
  • Ability to load only parts it needs
• OSGi currently has a lot of mindshare

The central questions /

• Decisions, decisions
  • EJB 3 or Spring
  • Spring on dm Server or on J2EE/JEE server?
  • OSGi or not OSGi
  • Do I need EJB 2 compatibility?
  • In addition, there are many “old” considerations
• Servers are not “all inclusive”
  • EJB 3 apps won't work on SpringSource dm Server or Tomcat

Assessment JBoss /

JBoss Thought Leadership Complete ecosystem Portal ESB BPM JBoss has history of innovation Pioneer of EJB 3 Seam Application Framework Web Beans OSGi Support in JBoss 5	JBoss for Developers Excellent customizability JMX-based, don't deploy what you don't need Seam is worth a look for developers JDK 6 with 4.2.3 and 5.0 GA JDK 5 compiled binaries work on both JDK 5 and JDK 6 JBoss IDE Eclipse-based JBoss Tools Free version (RHDS is paid version)
JBoss in Production Dependability Excellent clustering and failover capability Reliable in production Monitoring and deployment capabilities Not really oriented toward system administration out of the box Command line/file edit flavor of configuration GUI tools (Tomcat manager and JMX Console) are fairly basic Excellent 3rd party tools available for monitoring Hyperic GroundWork IT JON *	JBoss – Conclusions Strengths Mature, scalable and reliable Good support for J2EE and EJB 3 Seam framework Weaknesses Limited GUI-based configuration in open source version LGPL License may be a concern for ISV's embedding app servers

Assessment SpringSource dm Server /

SpringSource dm Server Newcomer Released in April of 2008 GPL license Incorporates many mature components Spring Framework Tomcat Equinox dm Server users are very early adopters Different take on app server OSGi support No support for EJB No JMS out of the box	dm Server for Developers Server works well with Spring Framework IDE Spring IDE - IDE for Eclipse platform Support for NetBeans and IntelliJ OSGi support Resolves “dependency hell” But requires application migration to take advantage of it Supports Java 5 and 6
dm Server Thought Leadership OSGi-based Good OSGi implementation OSGi discussed a lot in their documentation No support for EJB No support for EJB 3 or old EJB 2 spec Spring offers similar functionality to Seam Which is somewhat more mature Although some of the Seam ideas might be somewhat more powerful Bijection	dm Server – Conclusions Strengths Support for Spring Framework Support for OSGi Weaknesses Newcomer No EJB Limited experience among workforce

Assessment Tomcat /

Tomcat First release (3.0.x) in 1999 Apache license Servlet container Lightweight server Used in many other app servers JBoss dm Server Geronimo	Tomcat – Conclusions Strengths Lightweight Well known and tested Fast startup/deployment for development Weaknesses No support for EJB, JMS or almost anything else outside of “web side”
Tomcat in Development and Production Tomcat 6 supports Clustering Failover Widely used for both development and production Supported in most popular IDEs

Conclusions /

• App servers are not just about the JEE specs
• Make some high-level decisions before evaluation
  • Do I need EJB 2 compatibility?
  • Do I intend to follow EJB 3 and other industry standards?
  • Do I need something fast, lightweight, and easy to use?
  • Do I have a need for lifecycle management of server components (through OSGi)?
  • Do I need support for dynamic languages like Groovy and JRuby?
  • Am I an early adopter of new technology?

Recommendations /

• “I’m using EJBs and I’m conservative”
  • JBoss, GlassFish
• “I don't need XA/JMS/EJB”
  • Tomcat, JBoss, GlassFish, dm Server
• “I’m using Spring”
  • Conservative - JBoss, Tomcat, GlassFish
  • Leading edge - dm Server
• “I need to embed an app server in my commercial code”
  • Tomcat, Geronimo
• “I use Spring heavily and I need OSGi”
  • I need it today and don't need EJBs - dm Server
  • I need it soon and/or need EJBs – GlassFish, JBoss
• “I use Seam”
  • JBoss
• “I want ActiveMQ/Spring/Hibernate preinstalled”
  • Geronimo
• “I need dynamic language support”
  • Groovy/Grails – dm Server, JBoss, GlassFish
  • JRuby/Rails - GlassFish, Geronimo

Innoveo Skye – Product strategy workshop

Yesterday and today, workshop with the Innoveo Management Team near Zurich for refining and documenting our Innoveo Skye™ (content, scope, roadmap) software solution for insurances (front-end and distribution).

More information there about Skye™.

 

Innoveo at the InsuranceCom conference

Innoveo was again this year partner of the InsuranceCom congress in Zurich.

Lot of very interesting presentations (main topic was innovation this year) and many very good contacts and exchanges!

Innoveo - A real life example of productive SOA solutions

Two years ago a first version of the publication “Service Oriented Architecture for Dummies” has been published. Therein our reference customer, the Helvetia Insurance Group, was mentioned together with the solution we have successfully put in place for them.

In the second, reviewed edition, Innoveo has been dedicated again one full chapter of the book. Still our solution is considered to be a practical, state of the art example of how SOA can work in real life, creating both, an enhanced efficiency and cost optimization on the IT side as well as real business benefits on the customer side.

We are proud of having been selected by Judith Hurwitz for her book and we wish Judith again an amazing success with this new publication.

Find more information about the book on Judith Hurwitz’s Weblog. Judith is one of the authors and we’ve had the pleasure to be directly in contact with her to discuss the content and the progresses we’ve made in the time between the first and the second edition.

You can order the book at Amazon.com.

Get additional information about our consulting services and our insurance frontend solution Innoveo Skye™ by visiting our company website.

cross-posted as Innoveo News.

All the best for 2009!

Some thoughts concerning 2008+ and wishes for 2009.

Looking back to … 2008+

Actually, 2008 started for me already in 2007 :-)

Difficult to make the cut in January 2008, as we have started Innoveo in October 2007…

So, below, some pictures which are representing my 2008+, a mix of private and professional stuff, as usual.

And, without explanations, for sure ;-)

All in all, 2008 was again extremely “different” and “stable”.

• Different, because I could learn a lot of new stuff, a bit more about myself, meet a huge amount of persons, very smart and people-oriented. A lot of new experiences, in so many different fields, wow :-) And, on top, a strong and deep feeling of being very lucky to be able to lead our own company with Nick . Different also, because it is the first time that I feel so clearly the quite high pressure, even positive, of leading a company and being “responsible” for this company!
• Stable, because I had the chance, first, to work with and for the same great people! I like very much this ecosystem! Stable, secondly, because my family and private life is solid, full of happiness and great private moments. I don’t like stability, excepted in these two fields ;-)

What about 2009?

Looks interesting, isn’t it? As during all the downturn and crisis time, we will all have our ups and downs.

Hopefully with more “ups”, and not too deep “downs”!

Flexibility will be essential, as speed.

I wish you and your beloved ones all the best for the exciting coming year, a lot of fun, good wines and meals (!), success in your new business(es), and a lot of new learnings!

And keep dreaming :-)

Take care, Didier

[click on the calendar-zone to enlarge]

Snowy day in Zurich!

This morning, it was snowing between 10 and 20cm in Zurich.
Happy not to travel by car ;-)

On the way to Zurich by train

From the office

Cool to bike today!

Scenarios For 2009: How CIOs Should Prepare (Forrester research)

via Ed Cone

Ed is pointing to a very interesting document from Forrester about the reactions of CIOs, classified by sectors. Including the Finance &  Insurance industries.

For the Insurance Industry, the analysis of Forrester is quite aligned with what we are perceiving at Innoveo.

The analysis is very recent and was presented during a webinar on December 11, 2008.

What is the insurance industry doing to address the downturn?

• Anticipating more cut backs for 2009.
• Insurance has already made significant cuts in IT spending early in 2008.
• Growth in IT purchases for Finance & Insurance:
  • 2007: +8%
  • 2008: -2%
  • 2009: -3%

How will the recession affect the Insurance Industry?

• Shallow recession: GOOD
• Deep recession: NEUTRAL

What are firms in these sectors doing to address the downturn?

• Most firms focus on IT’s traditional cost-cutting tactics.
• New investments (30% of the overall costs):
  • Portfolio segmentation
    • Use commodity / low-cost resources
    • Eliminate large-sized efforts
    • Focus on short-term returns
  • Adopt lean thinking, reduce complexity
  • Shorten planning horizons
• Operational costs (70% of the overall costs):
  • Consolidation/standardization, consistent with the business model
    • Data centers, server/storage virtualization
    • Consolidate and squeeze vendors
    • Centralization of IT contracts
  • Lean thinking — reduce complexity,
  • Staff and asset utilization optimization
    • Delay upgrades and refresh
    • Downgrade for lower volumes
    • Automate where it makes sense

The Finance & Insurance sectors are considering to invest in the following actions in 2009:

• Retiring older applications or technologies to save support costs 50%
• Adjusting project portfolios to increase near-term return on investment 55%
• Assessing the IT organization structure to improve efficiencies 60%
• Investing in technologies such as automation to reduce IT operating costs 70%

Leading firms take multiple alternative approaches:

• Traditional IT tactics to deliver short-term results
• Agility to offer alternatives in the long run — providing a lasting ability to rapidly shift partners, customers, and markets
  • Focus on increasing ability to change: adding/removing services, reselling services from third parties, channel integration
  • Focus on external interfaces to data and systems
    • Apply SOA for strategic flexibility
    • Look to third parties for flexible interfaces
  • Increase flexibility of contracts
  • Employ agile development methodologies
• Innovation to accelerate out of the downturn — new business models and product/service offerings in addition to operational improvements
  • Accelerating out of the downturn requires a strategic focus, but without higher overall costs
  • Use a portion of CapEx for innovative ideas
  • Focus innovation criteria on business strategies
  • Use Web 2.0 technologies to farm ideas from across your Innovation Network — internal and external
  • Employ a different idea pipeline / steering committee
  • Keep investment performance metrics

Summary for the Finance & Insurance sectors:

 

Innoveo Skye, a Swiss made software!

At Innoveo, we are member of the swiss made software community, since our creation.

"swiss made software" is the new label of the Swiss software industry. International software companies like Google, IBM or Microsoft have discovered the Swiss values - quality, reliability and precision - in software development and have established important research and development centers in Switzerland. If you are looking for Swiss values and innovation, openness and flexibility in software, choose your partner from this site.

Our software product – Innoveo Skye – is now also listed in the new product part of the swiss made software website.

Description: Innoveo Skye is a generic, flexible insurance sales solution. It supports an unlimited number of products and services, all lines of business (life and non-life) and all sales channels. Industrialize  
Technology: Insurance-specific, J2EE (TM) based IT solution on commercial (Weblogic (TM), Websphere (TM), ...) and open source (JBoss (TM)) infrastructure stacks, together with a wide range of business-oriented services. 

sugarCRM

via ITRmanager.com (in French)

At Innoveo, we are using intensively sugarCRM since the start of our company, for managing in a structured way our contacts, leads, opportunities and marketing material. At the end, our sales-funnel is managed in sugarCRM.

We are using the professional version of sugarCRM, which is a commercial open source CRM software. This allows us to connect in a very easy way Microsoft Outlook and sugarCRM (archiving of emails of example). Below you can have an idea about the different versions of sugarCRM:

ITRmanager has just posted an interesting interview with the CEO of sugarCRM, John Roberts:

• founded in 2004
• 180 employees
• 4’000 customers of the commercial editions of the product, more than 500 in Europe
• 450’000 users
• 5 million downloads
• one of the biggest PHP project, with more than 600’00 SLOC (Single Lines Of Code)
• 40 software developers that are working full-time on the product
• published under GPL v3
• 4 founding rounds for a total of $46 million
• their goal is not to propose free software, but a very good functional product for a cheaper price than its competitors, because of a different sales and marketing structure
• 80% of license sold, 20% on-demand
• only the software engineers of sugarCRM are developing the core-product, which represents 50 to 60% of the overall code
• about 100 external developers are contributing actively
• about 12’000 developers are representing the sugarCRM community and developing extensions (about 500 extensions so far)
• about 80’000 users are building the overall community, participating to the forums, roadmaps, tests, etc.
• IPO was planned for 2009, will be postponed
• about $20 million cash-reserve
• positive cash-flow planned for Q1/2009

Articles, conferences, reports, books, collaterals and video

Above an updated list (per October 18, 2008) of the different publications, articles, conferences, reports, books, collaterals and video linked with my work in the last years by Helvetia, ecenter solutions, and now, innoveo!

 

	ARTICLES
1	31.10.2002	German, English	Switzerland	Schweizer Versicherung	pdf DE, pdf EN, url
2	26.11.2004	French	France	01 Informatique	pdf, url
3	06.01.2006	English	USA	CIO Insight	pdf, url
4	01.02.2006	English	Rusia	The Insurer	pdf, url
5	11.04.2006	English	USA	FinanceOnWindow	pdf, url
6	11.04.2006	English	USA	Finextra	pdf, url
7	12.04.2006	English	USA	CRMtoday	pdf, url
8	13.04.2006	English	USA	InfoWorld	pdf, url
9	20.04.2006	English	Australia	ComputerWorld Australia	pdf, url
10	24.04.2006	English	USA	ComputerWorld	pdf, url
11	30.04.2006	English	USA	Enterprise Networks&Servers	pdf, url
12	15.05.2006	English	NewZealand	ComputerWorld NewZealand	pdf, url
13	30.06.2006	German	Switzerland	Netzwoche	pdf, url
14	01.07.2006	English	USA	Insurance Networking	pdf, url
15	10.07.2006	English	USA	Computerwire	pdf, url
16	24.07.2006	English	USA	GlobalServices	pdf, url
17	04.09.2006	German	Germany	ComputerZeitung	pdf, url
18	06.11.2006	English	USA	Baseline	pdf, url
19	01.11.2007	German	Switzerland	ICT in Finance	pdf, url
	CONFERENCES
1	16.04.2003	German	Switzerland	Euroforum - VersicherungsIT	pdf, url
2	15.09.2005	German	Switzerland	IT-Strategie-Forum	pdf, url
3	29.11.2005	English	Russia	International Conference	pdf, url
4	15.05.2006	English	Italy	HP Enterprise Executive Summit	pdf, url
5	19.09.2006	English	Belgium	euroOSCON	pdf, url
	REPORTS
1	19.11.2005	English	USA	Thoughtware Worldwide	pdf, url
2	01.11.2006	English	USA	Hurwitz & Associates	pdf, url
3	01.12.2006	English	USA	Butler Group report	pdf, url
4	16.01.2007	English	USA	Celent	pdf, url
5	01.06.2007	English	USA	ovum report	pdf, url
	COLLATERALS
1	01.01.2001	German, English	Switzerland	HP Success Story	pdf DE, pdf EN
2	01.01.2002	German, English	Switzerland	HP Success Story	pdf DE, pdf EN
3	23.10.2006	English	USA	HP Success Story	pdf
4	01.08.2008	English	Switzerland	HP Marketing Collateral	pdf
	VIDEOS
1	01.10.2006	English	USA	HP Video	url

Innoveo Solutions, already one year - Part II

After the “who” of the “First who, then what”, let’s have a look at the “what” ;-) And let’s start with what I would like to call the “prerequisites”

 

Prerequisites

 

The prerequisites are quite “simple”! You have a business and the right people to address it ;-)

In other words: you have a business plan with clear ideas about:

• the status quo (current situation where you are in the founding, acquisition from customers, productizing, financing, etc.)
• you product and services
• the market you would like to address
• the competitors (no competitor, no market)
• marketing and sales
• administration & organization
• productizing
• management
• risk analysis
• finances

At the end, all this should be translated in a clear “values, vision, mission, industry and markets targeted, capabilities”.

As others, I like to speak about differentiation and customers’ pains, as from product positioning.

The best is still to confront your perception of the market with…the market itself! And to correct, iterate, improve, learn, make failures, learn, improve, etc.

We had the chance to start with a big customer contract with a well-known and established company, for quite a long duration. On top, we had also a huge asset, the IP (Intellectual Property) of our software product, coming from a 7 years development and big former investment.

 

Founding

Pfffuu, not so easy. Quite a lot of steps to do, and the first steps are extremely important!

• First you need to fix the name of the company. The name is representing your new venture. It is central for your identity, your marketing and communication future activities. If you have already tried to find a name for a product or a company, you should know that it is very difficult to find a name which is not already used or reserved. As everybody, you then try to combine names, to use Latin or Greek names, etc. We were lucky because after a lot of tries, Nick found the name INNOVEO. At this time, 34 results on Google! And no company registered in Switzerland under this name. Furthermore, Innoveo is a great combination between INNOvation and VEO which means “to see” in Latin. At the end, we decided also to add “Solutions” to our company name because we are delivering software solutions. The domain-name was already reserved. So we had to buy the different main domains (for “innoveo”) and to transfer them. The name is also usable internationally and doesn’t seem to mean something in another language.
• For the office location, it was clear that we wanted to stay in the Zurich/Switzerland area. As we are coming from different places, Zurich remains central and very attractive for hiring A-level international employees. Zurich is designated since years as one of the best place to live. On top, Zurich is a well-know financial place internationally. Concerning the office itself, we wanted to stay near a train-station. The building we were in before was ok. So after having evaluating other opportunities, we decided not to move.
• Our Team was fully integrated in the evaluation and decision process for the choice of the name, as for the office location.
• So, you have the name and the location, you need to choose the form of the company. This is also impacting a lot your venture! Accounting, Corporate Governance, legal obligations, etc. are very depending from this form. We mainly had two possibilities: “GmbH” (limited liability) or AG (Incorporated). As we have started with more than 14 people and we have very big companies as customers, it was quite clear that we need an “AG” form (incorporated). As for liabilities reasons (we deliver a software product).
• Then you need to work on the statutes of the company.
• You have to structure and define your Board of Directors. It was clear that Nick and myself will be members of the Board of Directors. We wanted to enlarge our Board with two external members, very qualified and experienced in different fields: strategic management, sales, software product marketing, product positioning, accompanying start-ups in their development, etc. We had the chance to be able to gain Bruno and Pancho. The organization of the regulations between the Shareholders’ Assembly, the Board of Directors and the Executive Management of the company should be also fixed and documented.
• Ok, then you need to find the shareholders, to define the level of equity requested, the investment of each shareholder, and to define the Shareholders’ Agreement.
• In the statutes, you have also to determine the signature rights of the Board and of the Management, and to authenticate them by a trustee.
• At this point, you have also to open a corporate bank account, to be able to transfer the capital … and pay your first bills due to the founding process ;-)
• The statutes, name and form of the company, office location, member of the Board of Directors, level of Equity, and the signature rights have to be registered (and partly published) at the Commercial Register.
• For all these steps, you need absolutely the support of a attorney at law and a trustee. And, it is not the last time that you will need them ;-) We are working with Peter Neuenschwander (attorney) and Oliver Götz (trustee). since more than 18 months now. These two persons are extremely important for our company.
• A picture below taken from the office of the notary in Walliseller – Switzerland, where Innoveo Solutions was founded on Monday, June 25, 2007 (Nick, Lorenz, Philippe and myself).

That is, more or less (I have surely forgotten some stuff!), the founding process. At the same time, you need to define quite a lot of administrative processes. These, for the next post!

Innoveo Solutions, already one year - Part I

And what for a year :-) We started in October 2007, with 14 people. We are today 16. We started with one customer, we today have 4, which means some great steps on the way to the difficult customer diversification.

So, if you mind (if not, just stop to read this post, very easy ;-), I would like to take some minutes to look back to these extremely intensive 12 months. What have we done? Wow, good question! Let’s try to structure a bit these achievements. And let’s concentrate on the management activities, not on the great delivery and concrete outcome of the whole team. By doing this, it would take much more time. Just too much.

I will divide this “looking-back” process in different parts, too long for one post!

Let’s start with the 3 most important parts.

 

Co-leading Innoveo with Nick

• Nick, my Business Partner, and myself are working for 8 years together. Our collaboration has evolved step-by-step, and we are leading the company together from the day 0.
• Still a lot of fun, respect and learnings in this collaboration. And still complementary in our different ways of managing, based on the same foundation of values.
• I am a lucky guy to be able to work with Nick and I am convinced that our strong collaboration and respect is very positive for Innoveo.
• We have learnt again a lot how to work efficiently together. Responsibilities are clearly splitted but we benefit from each other everywhere it is possible.
• We are developing ourselves in our new roles (Board members, leading tactically the company, sales) together and by our own. Specially helped there by our Board.

 

The management Team

• We are also learning to act all together as an entire and compact Management Team, with Nick, with Philippe (Services and Support), with Lorenz (Technology) and Oli (Product Management).
• Our roles and responsibilities are becoming more and more clearer. Delegation and cross-deputy roles are better in place. We are operatively leading the company together. The most important tactical decisions are taken together. The strategic orientation is discussed and prepared together for the Board meetings.
• On the good way to efficiency.

 

The Innoveo people

• “First who, then what” still in place, with some nice (and complicated) examples.
• Wow, still the main driver to wake up each morning :-)
• I really like the cultural mix and our multinational environment.
• Our team spirit and identity is still extremely strong and both were confirmed from outside quite a lot of time. So it seems that it is not just an “internal” view ;-)
• Lot of fun und humor, very experienced hard-working people. Extremely motivated. Experts in a lot of areas. Our customers like them! I too.
• Great cohesion, very good personal development of almost everybody.
• Nobody left Innoveo (since 8 years now, in the different constellations).
• We could extend our team with Robert and Conny, two great persons, very well integrated in the team. As if they were by us since years!
• People = still and definitely our *main asset*.

Next chapters will contain some stuff about:

Founding, Accounting, Administration, Human Resources, Legal, Productizing, Support process, Corporate Identity, Marketing and branding, Sales, Partner Management, Capital and shareholders, Board of Directors.

Perhaps not in this order!

Extremely good news for Innoveo today!

Although I am already on holidays, I would like to mark this day and to share my excitement with you all!

:-)

After about six months, we have reached a a great team-achievement again.

More “explicit information” to share with you in the coming time!

(and no, this has nothing to do with the fact that we are going to St Barth in some hours!)

Happy sysadmin appreciation day, Olivier!!

Today, July 25 2008, is … the System Administrator Appreciation Day!!

As a reminder, what is a sysadmin

 

A sysadmin unpacked the server [...] from its box, installed an operating system, patched it for security, made sure the power and air conditioning was working in the server room, monitored it for stability, set up the software, and kept backups in case anything went wrong. [...]

A sysadmin installed the routers, laid the cables, configured the networks, set up the firewalls, and watched and guided the traffic for each hop of the network that runs over copper, fiber optic glass, and even the air itself to bring the Internet to your computer. [...]

A sysadmin makes sure your network connection is safe, secure, open, and working. A sysadmin makes sure your computer is working in a healthy way on a healthy network. A sysadmin takes backups to guard against disaster both human and otherwise, holds the gates against security threats and crackers [...]

[...] A sysadmin is a professional, who plans, worries, hacks, fixes, pushes, advocates, protects and creates good computer networks, to get you your data, to help you do work -- to bring the potential of computing ever closer to reality.

So, now, as you see again what we are talking about, what is this sysadmin appreciation day?

 

What is this sysadmin day?

 

Consider all the daunting tasks and long hours (weekends too.) Let's be honest, sometimes we don't know our System Administrators as well as they know us. Remember this is one day to recognize your System Administrator for their workplace contributions and to promote professional excellence. Thank them for all the things they do for you and your business.

By us at Innoveo, we have Olivier, our sysadmin!

 

So for us at Innoveo, we have Olivier, our sysadmin :-)

Olivier: this is your day. Umh, already finished, but anyway!

 

Illustrations!

 

Olivier, as usual, kissing his servers ;-)

Network cable sorting exercise

Sometimes, you have to be alone to solve some prod issues…And, at the same time, others are just eating a great dinner. Pfffuuuu….

But, after the effort, some comfort…and cigars. Guess with whom ;-)

It seems that we still have some “room for improvement”. Gosh!

OLIVIER HOPE YOU HAD A GOOD SYSADMIN DAY ;-)

Innoveo Launches New Corporate Identity

Dear customers, partners and friends

After 9 exciting and successful months on the market, we are proud to introduce our new corporate identity. It now represents our personality, culture, spirit and soul in a more appropriate way, as it has been built on our company’s…

VALUES /

• INNOVATION
• QUALITY, PROFESSIONALISM AND TRANSPARENCY
• TRUST AND RESPECT
• DYNAMISM AND FUN

MISSION /

• ENABLING BUSINESS INNOVATION

VISION /

• BE RESPECTED LEADERS IN CONNECTING THE INSURANCE BUSINESS WITH TECHNOLOGY

 

Find below our new Logo and get additional information about our CONSULTING SERVICES and our insurance framework INNOVEO SKYE by visiting our new company WEBSITE.

 

We are looking forward to a continuous successful co-operation and collaboration with you all under our new brand!

For the Innoveo Team,

Didier

PS1: a BIG THANK to Laurent for the great and efficient .Net implementation.

PS2: another BIG THANK to Andreas Koch, our absolutely great designer, for his support, commitment, and creativity.

PS3: another THANK to evaluant for their great Open Source product, EUSS (Evaluant Universal Storage Services).

PS4: and the last THANK to wygwam for their great help in the field of CSS.

Innoveo is proud to be Business Partner of HP!

We are very proud at Innoveo to announce that we are now officially a Business Partner of HP (Hewlett-Packard) since about one month.

We are member of the Developer & Solution Partner Program (DSPP). Our front-end solution for the Insurance Industry and our company are listed in the worldwide partners and solutions catalog!

innoveo solutions is a software company whose products, services and technologies enable its insurance industry clients to create business value. It provides high-level expertise in software, multi-channel e-business platforms, SOA, architecture, open source, infrastructure in combination with insurance industry knowledge.

This membership is concretizing a solid, trustful and already quite long common partnership. And also the fact that quite a lot of us are former HP employees ;-)

All this was possible thanks to the great and constant support of Petra Wildemann, Worldwide Director Financial Services / Insurance at HP.

cross-posted on the innoveo blog.

First trip to India, Chennai...

via Wikipedia

In about one week, we will have the pleasure to go to India, and more precisely to Chennai, for a business trip. Wow :-)

Chennai, formerly known as Madras, is the capital of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Located on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal, Chennai has an estimated population of 7.5 million (2007), making it the fourth largest metropolitan city in India and one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world.

The city was established in the 17th century by the British, who developed it into a major urban centre and naval base. By the 20th century, it had become an important administrative centre, as the capital of the Madras Presidency.

Chennai's economy has a broad industrial base in the automobile, technology, hardware manufacturing, and healthcare industries. The city is home to much of India's automobile industry and is the country's second-largest exporter of information technology (IT) and information-technology-enabled services (ITES), behind Bangalore. The city is served by an international airport and two major ports; it is connected to the rest of the country by five national highways and two railway terminals. Thirty-five countries have consulates in Chennai.

Absolutely impressive! This city has actually more inhabitants than Switzerland! The weather is also quite different as by us: 32°C during the day and a minimum of 20° at night. With 90% humidity...

Innoveo is strengthening its Team :-)

Very good news today!

Innoveo will have one employee more in 2 months. And what for a new colleague!

First, we have won one nationality more, i.e. we will have 8 nationalities represented in the company (Swiss, French, German, Italian, Austrian, Indian, Slovenian, and Dutch!). Not bad.

Secondly, we have won a very very nice guy.

Thirdly, he is such a great professional, with a huge experience in Software Engineering and Architecture! Incredible :-)

We are extremely proud and honored that, among a vast spectrum of options, such an expert has his choice finally felt on Innoveo.

Thanks ... and see you soon!

Back to 2007, some Lessons Learnt

2007 was a very turbulent, chaotic and exceptional year for me. A year full of lessons learnt and learnings, as intensive as my 2 years at EM Lyon for my MBA.

As I have heard again at leweb3 and from our business and VC friends and colleagues, it seems that there aren't so many successful cases of spin-out in Europe with innoveo. And with Nick and the whole Team (and the support of Helvetia), we did it!

So, without any prioritization, I would like to share some of my thoughts with you:

• balancing the "shit" with positive experiences: the work was not always just for fun and very pleasant, we really had some tough times, for sure. For me, it was again important to find a balance between this brutal reality and some "compensations", as having some great lunches and dinners (yes, including good wines) with friends, having fun to drive my car, taking some pictures (more and more), buying my first "big" watch, and for sure, being able to go on holidays regularly with my wife and my son, specially when we can travel to Saint Barth ;-)
• solving a very complex issue: needs time and patience. And sometimes a clear massive increase of the complexity to be able to find out a solution! Thanks for this one, Nick ;-)
• when you think it is finished: it is not finished! If you stay resilient. It can even get worst ;-) Or a solution can suddenly appear in the darkness! Staying tuned and opened for all the opportunities seem to be very relevant, as always playing with worst case scenario. When you have identified this worst case scenario and you know how you will react, then you are really prepared. And normally, the worst case is not happening. More or less, always something "in between", in the "gray zone".
• friends and family: were absolutely essential during this phase. Gosh, it was not an easy time at home for my wife and my son... I was terribly not present mentally, completely focused on the spin-out. And when present, exhausted, or in a terribly mad mood. Let me mention two friends, among others, who were very important for me and gave me the faith to move on with this crazy idea: Manu and Marc. You were both very supportive and very decisive, and perhaps also the two only ones who *really* thought that we had a chance ;-)
• co-managing a company: I have learnt further on to share and to manage the company with Nick. It is a long journey, specially for me (not really my personality ;-), to co-manage and cross-delegate the company responsibilities. On the other side, I definitely  wouldn't have been able to manage the spin-out process without Nick. I am deeply convinced that we are working in a very interesting and efficient way. And this deep collaboration was the base for the birth of innoveo, with the support of our Team. We are learning more and more how to work and to benefit from each other, all these, with positive consequences for the company. Even if we know that this "co-managing style" doesn't correspond to some leadership "best practices". Specially the ones coming from the military experience. That's ok for us. And disturbing for some people :-)
• believing in our values and our dreams: it is very interesting to confront your values and dreams with the "brutal reality". Always easy to speak about that if you are in a stable phase ;-) Let's try to do it in a very unstable process, as our spin-out. This brings real and deep learnings about your internal drivers. For me, personally, it was essential to know if the values I believe in since years are really stable and consistent, also in the adversity. This spin-out phase was a good and valuable "proof-of-the-pudding" for that. Also to be sure with Nick that we are sharing the same values fundament. It was absolutely fantastic to see how far this was/is the case, although we were challenging in this field each day of the last year! This is very strong and powerful. And reassuring to know that not all the people just believe in money and carrier.
• the value is in the team / first who then what: I was always convinced that we had a special team-spirit and that we were sharing the values that Nick and I were sharing, but across the *whole Team*. Always easy to say. Also there, it was really a wonderful and fantastic experience to see how far the Team was compact and stable, despite all the turbulences and uncertainty during about 6 months! And this, at the same time as a huge and difficult delivery time. I will *never* forget some of the most important meetings we had together. Guys, you were so supportive! In a sense, I have felt again how far it is central to share a vision with some guys and how far *they* are much more important to implement this vision.

So, all in all, a bunch of great experiences, more positive than negative ones, this big step with our spin-out of innoveo, some absolutely fantastic confirmations and...new challenges that are coming in 2008 (stabilization and first developments of innoveo).

So, I can just say "thanks" for this great year. It will be difficult to have a more challenging year, although....

:-)