Remo Knops' Personal Blog » PERSONAL

HTC Participation ride with Team HTC-Columbia – A jersey donation to “Child Cancer Just Beat It”

Remo Knops — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 12:00:48 +0000

On July 2nd, one day before the start of Le Tour de France 2010, there are a lot of events on and around the prologue track.

HTC UK organized a HTC Participation ride with Erik Zabel and Tristan Hoffman around the Kralingse Plas in Rotterdam. It is a great location to cycle with lots of green, and honestly I didn’t have the feeling to be very close to a large city like Rotterdam.

Meet Erik Zabel, Tristan Hoffman and team HTC-Columbia

In this picture above you can see Erik Zabel, Tristan Hoffman and the participating HTC Columbia team-members lining up for the truck.

Eric Zabel, Advisor;

“With over 200 professional wins Erik Zabel is considered by some one of the greatest German cyclists and best cycling sprinters of history. Zabel won a record nine points classifications in grands tours including wearing the final green jersey in the Tour de France a record six consecutive years between 1996 to 2001 and the points jersey at the Vuelta a España in 2002, 2003 and 2004. Zabel won the Milan-Sanremo four times and numerous six-day track events.”

Tristan Hoffman, Sports Director;

“Tristan Hoffman, Sports Director, brings strong Classics racing experience to Team HTC-Columbia. He raced until 2004, was Dutch National Champion in 1992, and finished in the top five in Paris Roubaix three times.”

Helge Riepenhof, M.D. Head Team Doctor;
Luise Keller;
Gert Dockx;
Jan Ghyselinck;

In the list above you can follow the links to the HTC Columbia athletes, which brings you to their personal page with race wins and background information.

The ride around the Kralingse Plas

The ride itself wasn’t really difficult or hard to complete, since it were laps around the Kralingse Plas at an average speed. Of course the great part with the interaction with the riders, who were extremely easy going, open and approachable.

I had a nice conversation with Jan Ghyselinck about the Shimano Dura-Ace Di2, the intelligent Shimano electronic shifting group, which is mounted on the Scott Addict Team;
With Luise Keller I talked about women cycling, and the cycling programs for young riders now (compared to some years ago);
Helge Riepenhof was riding one of the Scott Project F01 bikes, so we discussed the improvements over the Scott Addict bikes. Furthermore we discussed topics like the SRM Training System – PowerMeter + PowerControl , the new HED wheels in the Scott Project F01 bike, and the technology leadership that HTC brings to the HTC Columbia team !
And last but not least there was time to ride side by side with Erik Zabel and Tristan Hoffman. I asked both of them about their current activities for the team, and was interested in their training programs since both Zabel and Hoffman really looked strong;

One of the unique characteristics of road cycling is that you can get very close to the riders. Remark for example the pictures of the mountain stages in Le Tour de France, where the walls of people split in two when the riders pass by.

Since we were just with a small number of people it was almost a private cycling clinic, that was extremely cool to experience (certainly if you are a hobby road cyclist yourself) and a lot of fun as well !!

HTC-Columbia Team Jersey signed for “Child Cancer Just Beat It”

A few weeks ago I wrote an article on this blog about the Child Cancer Just Beat It initiative , after one of my cycling friends, who is a product manager at Berner Benelux, asked me if I wanted to buy a blue “Just Beat It bracelet”.

Berner Benelux is going to support Child Cancer foundations in Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg for 18 months, in the light of their corporate social responsibility programs.

“Renewed research on child cancer requires a specific approach that is geared toward specific genetic characteristics of child cancer. VZW Child Cancer Foundation in Belgium, Kika in The Netherlands and Kriibskrank Kanner Foundation in Luxembourg, are asking for extra support for these types of research.”

During the HTC participation ride I explained to team HTC-Columbia that I attended the HTC participation ride in a special role as goodwill ambassador for the ”Child Cancer Just Beat It” foundation, and asked the team if it was possible to sign a HTC-Columbia jersey that will be auctioned for the fight against child cancer.

Erik Zabel, Tristan Hoffman and the rest of the team have been very supportive and were more than willing to contribute with a relative small thing like a signature ! In the picture above you can see me holding the team HTC-Columbia jersey, while Eric Zabel puts his signature on it !

Overall experiences of a great cycling event

My compliments to HTC UK, HTC Netherlands and team HTC-Columbia for the excellent organization and participation in such a great cycling event.

For me as a hobby cyclist it was awesome to ride with the HTC-Columbia team, dedicated professionals who are passionate about their sport with an impressive drive for succes and winning !!

The interaction with the riders was awesome, who were friendly, easy going, open and approachable. It really felt like I was riding with some good friends that you know for a 10 years. Foremost it was fun, with great sunny weather and a nice location with lots of green close to Le Grand Depart 2010 in Rotterdam.

Child Cancer – Just Beat It

Furthermore I attended the HTC participation ride in a special role as goodwill ambassador for the ”Child Cancer Just Beat It” foundation ! I would like to thank the members of team HTC-Columbia for their willingness, contribution and support for the fight against child cancer.

The HTC-Columbia team-members signed a team jersey that will be auctioned, and on behalf of Berner Benelux and the Child Cancer Just Beat It foundation I’m really humble and greatfull for this gesture !!

It was a great day and let’s hope for some great results of team HTC-Columbia in Le Tour de France 2010 !

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LG Panther Windows Phone 7 Prototype @ Windows Phone Get Together Event, Netherlands

Remo Knops — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 12:00:28 +0000

Last week I attended the very first edition of the Windows Phone Get Together event in Utrecht, the Netherlands. I think it is pretty unique to have an event in which a large company like Microsoft directly interacts and engages with end-users of their products.

You can read an extensive event report on MobilityMinded, and please put November 9th in your agenda when the next Windows Phone Get Together event will take place @ Microsoft Netherlands HQ.

Meet the local Dutch Windows Phone Team !

Maarten Sonneveld, Business Group Lead Mobile @ Microsoft Netherlands, opens the event with an introduction of the local Dutch Windows Phone team, and the Dutch Windows Phone Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVP), Jaap van Ekris, Mark Briggeman, Halil Yüksel.

Johan van Mierlo was visiting the Netherlands for a few days and was announced as well, as a USA Windows Phone MVP visiting the Windows Phone Get Together event.

Windows Phone Forum application – Aggregation of Dutch Windows Phone news

Windows Phone Forum application 1.0, that aggregates news and information from the Dutch Windows Phone Forums, the Blog of the Dutch Windows Phone team and its Twitter feed.

MobileLayers, the company of Halil Yüksel, has developed this application for Windows Phone, commissioned by Microsoft Netherlands. In the review of the Windows Phone Forum application 1.0 you can read more about the features and functions of this application.

Download the Windows Phone Forum application directly from the MobileLayers website.

Windows Mobile 6.5.3 – Now and the future strategic direction

Windows Mobile 6.5.3 will be strategically (re)directed towards the large business customers compared to the wider, more consumer-oriented offering of Windows Phone 7.

Windows Mobile 6.5.3 powered Phones (and its applications) will continue to exist and continue to be supported. Meet some of the latest Windows Mobile 6.5.3 phones: (1) Samsung Omnia Pro 4, (2) Sony Ericsson Aspen, and (3) HTC HD Mini.

It was great to hear some official news/information about the strategic direction of Windows Mobile 6.5.3, despite the intense focus on Windows Phone 7 !

Windows Phone 7 – A different kind of phone, designed for life in motion, with integrated experiences

HTC, Samsung, LG, Sony Ericsson, Dell, Toshiba, Acer, and Asus are original equipment manufacturers who have committed to build Windows Phone 7 devices.

Great news to see the hardware part of the Windows Phone 7 ecosystem take off, and I’m looking forward to some new fresh hardware designs that maximize productivity and efficiency of the Windows Phone 7 mobile operating system. Without giving any preference to anyone of the Microsof OEM Partners above, I would like to recall my excitement about the Dell Lightning Windows Phone that cleverly integrates a physical full QWERTY keyboard.

Furthermore it seems that you can expect the first Windows Phone 7 device(s) become available in the Netherlands via online retailer Coolblue around October/November this year.

Back in March this year I was fortunate to interview Charlie Kindel, Partner Group Program Manager for the Windows Phone Application Platform & Developer Experience, during the DevDays 2010 event in the Netherlands. The questions in the Q&A session of the Windows Phone Get Together Event showed some resemblance with the questions that I asked Charlie Kindel. The audience was a great mix of 90 people that approached Windows Phone 7 from different perspectives (customer, developer, technical decision maker, resulting in a highly interesting and lively discussion.

Developers who want to learn more about Windows Phone 7 development, could read the DevDays 2010 event report which addresses the sessions of Rob Miles, Microsoft Most Valuable Professional and lecturer in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Hull. The slide decks, recordings of the sessions and code samples on his website can really help you jumpstart development for Windows Phone 7.

Don’t forget to check out the PowerPoint Slides of Albert Shum, Michael Smuga, Chad Roberts about the Windows Phone UI and Metro Design Language, and the Engadget Windows Phone 7 complete guide !

Image used from Pocket Lint article “Windows Phone 7 and LG Panther hands-on, Fully-working prototype spied at Microsoft demo“

Hands-on time with a LG Panther Windows Phone 7 prototype

By far the coolest part of the Windows Phone Get Together event is the hands-on time with a (working) prototype of the LG Panther running a recent build of Windows Phone 7.

Everyone from the audience was allowed to get an idea of the real look and feel of Windows Phone 7, which is completely different than seeing it in PowerPoint SlideShows or YouTube videos. This is the real deal, and if you think about this, it is a very unique situation that Microsoft allows end-users to have some hands-on time with prototype hardware AND software !

It is very special and exciting to hold the LG Panther and make the first gestures through the Metro Windows Phone GUI, even despite the private demo of Charlie Kindel a little while ago. Overall the LG Panther and Windows Phone 7 felt snappy, responsive and showed fluid motions.

Unfortunately there was no copy of the Harvest, a 3D Xbox Live game on Windows Phone 7, loaded onto the LG Panther. Since the gaming hub has been one of the items that really impressed me during the MIX 2010 keynotes in terms of performance and power.

We were asked not to take pictures of the device, and of course I play by the rules of the game. There for I included the picture above of a Pocket Lint article, showing a very similar LG Panther (except for the color of the theme). In the context of these Windows Phone 7 prototypes I would like to bring the Samsung Omnia i8910-based Windows Phone 7 prototype phone, to your attention that has been covered by the Engadget team.

Despite it is still uncertain if you will see successors of these prototypes on the massmarket it is very nice to see different hardware designs and formfactors. This partly answers the question that differentiation in terms of hardware is possible.

I’m really looking forward to the Windows Phone 7 devices from the mentioned Microsoft OEM Partners !

Concluding thoughts and wrap-up

I think it is pretty unique to have an event in which a large company like Microsoft directly interacts and engages with end-users of their products.

It is even a more unique situation that Microsoft allows end-users to have some hands-on time with prototype hardware AND software ! However I think this has been the coolest part of the Windows Phone Get Together Event for a lot of attendees. Furthermore it helps in the process of telling the story and spread the news in an open and transparent way !

The LG Panther prototype and Windows Phone 7 had responsive look & feel resulting in fluid motions. Furthermore I see more and more awesome (concepts of) Windows Phone 7 applications like BusTrack, used for real-time tracking of Chicago buses, or the good old Minesweeper ! This clearly shows that the Microsoft Ecosystem is in the move, and I’m looking forward to the upcoming months !

Finally it was great to catch-up with old friends, the local Dutch Windows Phone team, and the attending Microsoft partners.

My compliments to Microsoft Netherlands and the partners Samsung & Coolblue for the excellent organization of the Windows Phone Get Together event, and see you all at the second Windows Phone Get Together Event on November 9th !!

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Child Cancer – Just BEAT it ! – An initiative of Berner Benelux

Remo Knops — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 08:00:08 +0000

Almost everyone has experienced (directly or indirectly) the impact of a terrible dissease like cancer in the circle of close friends and family. It is even more tragic when young childeren are hit by this class of disseases called cancer, as defined by wikipedia:

“Cancer is a class of diseases in which a group of cells display uncontrolled growth (division beyond the normal limits), invasion (intrusion on and destruction of adjacent tissues), and sometimes metastasis (spread to other locations in the body via lymph or blood).”

Recently one of my cycling friends, who is a product manager at Berner Benelux, asked me if I wanted to buy a blue “Just Beat It bracelet” in order to support the fight against child cancer. The answer to this question is a definite “YES, I’ll buy a few” without blinking an eye !

Corporate Social Responsibility with a personal touch

You could place this great initiative in the context of the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) discussion, which is becoming more and more important for companies today. The European Commission of of Enterprise and Industry defines Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as:

“A concept whereby companies integrate social and environmental concerns in their business operations and in their interaction with their stakeholders on a voluntary basis.”

Unfortunately is the Child Cancer Foundation Just Beat It, a form of Corporate Social Responsibility with a personal touch.

“We chose for the fight against childcancer because, unfortunately, a couple of Berner co-workers are currently experiencing it first hand and know what it means when your child is struck by cancer. Besides, looking at people around us, we all can imagine what this means and the impact cancer has on the young patients and their families.”

I would like to invite you all to read the story of Raymond Ruwette, warehouse employee at Berner in Landgraaf, who’s 4-year old son is diagnosed with cancer. The interview with Raymond Ruwette provides a slight idea of the impact that child cancer has on the diagnosed child, its parents and the neighbourhood of family and friends.

“In the past, Berner has supported all kinds of good causes. We are “experts with passion” and often show that we are also “experts with a heart”. This time, we will support Child Cancer foundations in Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg for 18 months. Renewed research on child cancer requires a specific approach that is geared toward specific genetic characteristics of child cancer. VZW Child Cancer Foundation in Belgium, Kika in The Netherlands and Kriibskrank Kanner Foundation in Luxembourg, are asking for extra support for these types of research.”

In the text above from the Just Beat It Child Cancer Foundation website, there are a few interesting facts! Berner Benelux supports a child cancer foundation in each country of the Benelux, three (!!!) in total ! Furthermore the time over which money is raised for the fight against child cancer is 18 months ( =1.5 years), with a long list of different events and approaches to raise money. I think this “longer” timeframe provides an opportunity to make a real difference.

Mont Blanc Expedition – The Just Beat It climax

“The expedition to the top of the Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in western Europe, will be the final of over a year of activities to support the charity organizations in their fight against child cancer. In June 2011 several employees of Berner will accept the challenge to reach the top of the Mont Blanc.”

The final phase of the upcoming 1.5 years of supporting activities to raise money to fight child cancer will be an expedition to the top of the Mont Blanc. This is a huge challenge from a sports perspective, since climbing to 4,810 meters above sea-level will require a peakcondition and lot of perseverance to reach the top. I can imagine that the expedition to the Mont Blanc top can be tough and emotional, certainly if I try to imagine the climb of Raymond Ruwette, warehouse employee at Berner in Landgraaf, who’s 4-year old son is diagnosed with cancer.

In addition to the challenging part climbing a mountain like the Mont Blanc includes also some symbolism. Hopefully the Mont Blanc Expedition will also become the highest peak in the amount of money to support the charity organizations.

However the Mont Blanc Expedition is about one year away, and will take place on June 2011. Therefore keep an eye on the website of the Just Beat It Child Cancer Foundation, and follow the expedition step by step. From training till reaching the top !

Concluding thoughts

Professional cyclist Lance Amstrong, has become the personification of the fight against cancer and raised awarness about the impact of this set of disseases. On the website of the Livestrong Foundation you can read the following quote:

“We fight to improve the lives of people affected by cancer.”

The Just Beat It Foundation is fighting for the same good cause, and I will help them to make a difference to the best of my abilities. Not only by making a financial contribution, but also by inspiring and as many people as possible, and let them donate or participate actively in one of the events in the upcoming future.

In contrast you need to think about the tremendous marketing budgets that are spent for the 2010 FIFA Worldcup in South Africa. Despite the fact that it will indirectly help the people in South Africa, it is just a small fraction of the marketing budgets that will reach the streets for personal development.

With a small donation to the Just Beat It Child Cancer Foundation you can really make a difference and change the lives of children diagnosed with cancer, their parents, friends and family! With your support for renewed research aimed at the genetic characteristics of child cancer you help the future generations as well !!

How you can help ?

The Just Beat It – Child Cancer Foundation is under ongoing construction, and unfortunately there isn’t a donate button available yet.

However with help of the following (banking) information it is possible to wiretransfer a donation to the according bankaccount in the Netherlands or Belgium:

Just Beat It – Child Cancer Foundation
P.O. Box 30034
NL-6370KA Landgraaf
The Netherlands
KvK 14131823
Bankrelation in The Netherlands: ABN-AMRO 45.83.70.460 , IBAN NL06ABNA0458370460
Bankrelation in Belgium: KBC 731-0109079-26 , IBAN BE59731010907926

Join the “experts with a heart” and support their incredible journey to fight child cancer !!

About Berner

For those of you who don’t know Berner as a company, you can read the “Berner in a minute” section below from the Berner Holding website:

“Berner is one of the leading European direct sales companies in the small parts business, for professional use in the building and automobile trades as well as in industry. Around 8,000 qualified, specialized employees – over 5,000 of those in field sales – ensure our customers are looked after comprehensively and advised professionally, every day, in over 20 European countries.”

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DevDays 2010 – Looking back @ Charlie Kindel Windows Phone 7 Interview, Windows Phone 7 Development, Making the Social Connection & Giving Robots Life !

Remo Knops — Sat, 29 May 2010 21:00:58 +0000

A few weeks ago I published a Windows Phone 7 related interview with Charlie Kindel, Partner Group Program Manager for the Windows Phone Application Platform & Developer Experience @ DevDays 2010, Netherlands on the MobilityMinded website.

DevDays 2010 is a large two-day event for developers on the Microsoft platform(s), and in this article I will share some information about the Windows Phone 7 related sessions.

Interview with Charlie Kindel, discussing Windows Phone 7 @ DevDays 2010

I was both fortunate and honored to have a 30 minute one-on-one interview with Charlie Kindel, Partner Group Program Manager for the Windows Phone Application Platform & Developer Experience, discussing various aspects of Windows Phone 7 (development).

It was an unforgettable and awsome experience, not only to interview someone who is completely responsible for the developer side of the Windows Phone 7 ecosytem, but also to feel and experience the persistance, commitment and determination of Charlie Kindel to make Windows Phone 7 a huge success.

As you can read in the interview I was fortunate to learn from Charlie Kindel about the underlying concepts and building-blocks of the upcoming Windows Phone 7 operating system. Some specific usage- scenario’s were still under research- or development (updates, copy-paste), which combined with the excellent media training of Charlie Kindel, left me with some open questionmarks.

However the close “private” demo got me really excited, especially Metro and the idea’s of content aggregation from different services or different locations on the phone. Also the productivity and efficiency improvements, like support for multiple Exchange accounts was great to see. Finally during one of the MIX 2010 keynotes I was simply blown away by the Xbox Live Game called The Harvest!

Charlie Kindel was one of the keynote speakers during the second day of DevDays 2010 as well, and I would like to recommend the recording of the session “Windows Phone 7 Application Platform”, which is available via Channel 9:

“Get a high-level overview of the new application platform and a complete picture of the developer story. Learn about the developer tools, the application frameworks, the support for Silverlight, and the support for XNA.”

Windows Phone 7 Development -- Rob Miles

“Rob Miles is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional and a lecturer in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Hull, United Kingdom.”

Rob Miles is shown in his full glory in the picture above, while the description comes straight from his own website robmiles.com -- Rob Miles on the web. And why not? Rob Miles is an experienced lecturer, with an awesome style of teaching, that is relaxed and funny. However he keeps you focused and has a great and deep understanding about developing in Silverlight and XNA.

You can find the complete video of the Windows Phone 7 Development session with Rob Miles on Channel 9, which again I can highly recommend. Matthijs Hoekstra, Developer Evangelist @ Microsoft Netherlands , who I meet at the DevDays 2010 as well, announced this session on Channel 9 as:

“Watch this show with the very funny Rob Miles. He talks about the new Windows Phone 7 tools, shows how you can emulate your accelerometers for your WP7 with an XBox 360 controller and much more.”

I will briefly discuss some of the demo’s that Rob Miles discusses and uses to explain the development concepts for Windows Phone 7.

PatternMatch Silverlight Game

The picture above shows the Silverlight based PatternMatch game, with a great summary at the bottom of the slide: “Silverlight makes “form based” games really easy to create.”

Rob Miles first shows us the code and its simple structure for the PatternMatch Game, and illustrates the Game works like it is intended. In the second part of the demo is the PatternMatch used to illustrate the navigation on a Windows Phone 7 device (including the start menu- and the back buttons, defined by the hardware specs).

Rob Miles finally briefly discusses the advantages and differences of Silverlight in comparison with the XNA design language.

StarLight XNA Game using XNA Accelerometer Emulation

Rob Miles grabs his Zune HD for this demonstration and elaborates a little on the background of why he wrote the StarLight game. In the Microsoft MSDN Library you can find even more extensive information in the article: StarLight: Writing a Space-Shooter Game for Smartphones.

“This article describes how to generate moving star fields, animated sprites, and scripted movements for game objects. A space shooter game illustrates how to develop these features for Smartphones.”

StarLight is ported to the Zune HD by Rob Miles to illustrate how to develop these concepts in XNA and even make use of the accellometer if you like. However the educational purpose of this game is brilliant, and despite it was Rob’s joke I really do hope we can push him to bring the StarLight game to Windows Marketplace for Mobile or the Zune Marketplace.

Windows XNA “Game” Serving Gamepad accelerometer

An Xbox 360 controller is used in this demo, where Rob Miles shows of a Windows Phone XNA game that reads the position of the controller in X, Y, Z coordinates.

“Windows Phone programs can consume web services and read web pages. I connect the Windows Phone program to an XNA program that serves out X, Y and Z values read from the Gamepad.”

Despite I don’t have a formal background in computer science, you can think of some cool scenario’s or even business models that build upon the concept to read webpages and web services.

WP7 Phone XNA Multi-touch Piano

The last demo that I would like to discuss is a multi touch piano, build in the XNA design language and running on a Zune HD. In other words you could play the piano on the go on your Zune HD, however the educational reasoning is to learn embedding multi-touch into your Windows Phone 7 application.

You can find all the demo code samples on the website of Rob Miles in the article: “Devdays 2010 Windows Phone Game Development Talk“

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFZ0z5Fm-Ng

Making the Social Connection -- Tony Krijnen, Daniel van Soest & Charlie Kindel

The video above was the introduction of the ”making the social connection keynote”, with the music of Fatboy Slim -- Right here right now song sounded impressive in the auditorium of the World Forum in the Hague.

I have seen Tony Krijnen and Daniel van Soest before when they provided a similar interesting technical session during TechNet_Live Netherlands, when I attended the new efficiency keynote with Steve Ballmer. Below you can see a brief overview of the mindblowing demo’s of Tony and Daniel:

Facbook on XBox 360 in addition to Facebook in Browser and Facebook for Windows Phone;
Microsoft Outlook Social Connector in Microsoft Office 2010 , that brings social networks like LinkedIn or Myspace into your Microsoft Outlook 2010 / 2007 environment;
Building a game level for Xbox 360 in a plug-and-play way, without seeing a single line of code;
Windows Phone 7 overview, and demotime with Charlie Kindel;

Jeff Wouters, Certified Microsoft Professional, has written an excellent story on his personal blog about the “making the social connection” keynote. So please check it out, and it was awesome to watch this session. Tony and Daniel keep up the good work, and I love the Windows Phone part !

Miles, R., 2010, Slides Giving Robots Life with the .NET Micro Framework, DevDays 2010, p.18

Giving Robots Life with the .NET Micro Framework -- Rob Miles

Rob Miles introduced himself and Oscar briefly on his personal blog, and you certainly need to watch the video on Tweakers.net as well:

“This time I’m taking my little robot Oscar and a bag full of sensors and bits and pieces. We are going to create some embedded devices on the fly and have some good old .NET Micro Framework fun and games.”

Rob Miles first shares his knowledge and experience to answer the questions “What is the .NET Micro Framework?” and “What can you do with the .NET Micro Framework?”. Both the software- and the hardware parts of these questions are addressed.

In summary: The .NET Micro Framework is designed for embedded applications (build in C#), that gives you the ability to control a wide variety of hardware from simple embedded controllers to connected data terminals.

The grand finale - Oscar, the Mini Robot rocks the stage !

The grandfinale of this session is controlling a robot with the .NET Microframework based on the system architecture shown in the screenshot above. The Windows Phone 7 device interacts with the Robot Control Webserver, which communicates with the wireless modem in Oscar, the Mini Robot.

Please have a look at the Flickr Photostream, where you can see the hardware setup and the grand finale where Oscar bows to the public @ DevDays ! This was really an wesome session, and reminded me of the good old times when I played around with Lego Technic (which probably has been one of the first identifyers for my mechanical engineering education).

Overall conclusion and wrap-up

My compliments to Microsoft Netherlands for the excellent organization of such a large-scale event like DevDays, which was comperable with the Microsoft TechNet_Live event for IT Professionals and Technical Decision Makers. I think it is a great opportunity to learn, broad your horizon and expand your value network by getting in touch with colleague developers.

Second I learned a lot from the sessions about the development side of Windows Phone 7, despite I don’t have a formal background in computer science. I was possible to get a deeper understanding of the possibilities of the Windows Phone 7 platform in a kind of high-level conceptual way. Please don’t ask me to write code, but I could grasp some of the underlying logic. Thank you Rob Miles for the brilliant way of lecturing !

If you ever plan to visit DevDays or TechNet_Live you definitely need to visit the keynote with Tony Krijnen en Daniel van Soest. They really bring excellent live demo’s and show you some very cool real scenario’s for a wide range of Microsoft products (from Xbox 360 to Windows Server 2008 R2) with a lot of passion and energy. The “guest-appearance” of Charlie Kindel and an extensive Windows Phone 7 demo made it even more special.

It was very special to meet a lot of awesome, highly interesting people, and I had some excellent converations with the people from Microsoft Netherlands on topics like Innovation and (corporate) Entrepreneurship !!Finally the interview with Charlie Kindel, Partner Group Program Manager for the Windows Phone Application Platform & Developer Experience, was an unforgettable experience. A great many thanks for the time and awesome demo !

I love Windows Phone !

About Microsoft Devdays 2010

DevDays 2010 is the largest Microsoft event in the Netherlands for software development and software architecture. Thousands of professionals yearly visit DevDays in order to get fully up-to speed about recent developments in their professional fields in two (Dev)days.
With lots of interesting keynotes, sessions and high quality speakers from all over the world this is definitely an event you need to attend if you are interested in developing on Microsoft platforms.

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HTC Wildfire launch event – Driving a Porsche Carrera GT3 @ Circuit Park Zandvoort

Remo Knops — Fri, 21 May 2010 15:45:00 +0000

Tuesday I was invited for the local HTC Wildfire launch event on a special location, Circuit Park Zandvoort. Circuit Park Zandvoort is one of the few car-race tracks in the Netherlands with a rich race history, several race klasses and even Formula 1.

This is a special location to introduce a new product like the HTC Wildfire, right ?

Introduction HTC Wildfire by Mark Moons, Regional Manager HTC Benelux

Mark Moons, Regional Manager HTC Benelux, kicks off the first part of the HTC Wildfire launch event with a general introduction of the current HTC position in the Benelux (= Belgium, Netherlands and Luxemburg) market.

HTC in the Benelux – Position and Trends

HTC grows in the Benelux market, (1) in terms of company, and (2) in terms of brand. HTC has a growing marketshare in the Netherlands, which is a trend I could follow over past events (for example Android Experience 2010 – Great Dutch event around the Android Ecosystem, and HTC HD2 locally announced by Mark Moons (HTC Benelux).

Mark Moons, Regional Manager HTC Benelux, raises a few highly interesting points about dynamics in the market.

The smartphone is becoming more mainstream, which means for the HTC brand a shift from technology brand to a more lifestyle position.
Furthermore there is a clear impact of social media on the use of smartphones, share your life always and everywhere. People who are engaging in social networks from a smartphone are more active/involved compared to traditional use behind the screen of a notebook.

To wrap-up this section HTC is the market leader on the Windows Mobile- and the Android operating system, and as an example don’t forget the huge success of the HTC Hero !

Meet the HTC Wildfire

In the picture above you can see that Mark Moons, Regional Manager HTC Benelux shows the HTC Wildfire in front of an aerial photograph of Circuit Park Zandvoort. On MobilityMinded I have published an article ”HTC Wildfire preview – Android & HTC Sense for the masses” that covers a preview of the HTC Wildfire hardware, and hopefully a thorough and in-depth review can be performed later.

In this section I will provide additional background information, underlying some of the key features of the HTC Wildfire. However I will start with the following summary of the HTC Wildfire on the HTC website:

“You have lots of friends in lots of different place. Why not bring them to you? See everyone’s Facebook, Twitter and Flickr updates, all in one feed. Share your favourite apps, because your mates will love them too. And get everything from texts, to photo’s organized by the friend that sent it – not to mention their latest Facebook status when they call. HTC Wildfire. Your friends have never been closer to you.”

Social networks take over the world

As mentioned before by Mark Moons, social networks are a catalyst for smartphones and their use.

Facebook: 500 mln users;
Twitter: 40 mln users;
Flickr: 32 mln users;

The numbers from the presentation don’t need much of an explenation, social networks take over the world.

Android Market – An explosion of applications

The second set of statistics provided by Mark Moons, Regional Manager of HTC Benelux is about the Android Market.

There are more than 54.000 applications in the Android Market and counting;
Forecast: 150.000 applications in the Android Market by Q4 2010;
Android users download -on average- 8.7 applications per month;
60% of the applications in the Android Market are free;

While in my honest opinion the number off applications doesn’t tell anything about the quality of the applications, these statiscs do show that there is a clear momentum for developers to jump on the Android train. However it is interesting to see the explosive growth of an open source based mobile operating system like Android, compared to the closed mobile operating system of the Apple iPhone.

Google Maps Navigation will become available in the Netherlands this month, and combined with Android 2.1 and the option to share applications with your friends, brings this the best of Android to the HTC Wildfire. If you add 3.2″ capacitive touchscreen supporting multi-touch, the HTC Sense GUI and an excellent 5.0 megapixel camera to this, you can only conclude that the HTC Wildefire is ready to target the segment “between” the feature phone and the smartphone. Given the price point of E259,- (including VAT and excluding a subscription) HTC is clearly comitted to play a tough retail game !

Paul van Splunteren, Dutch GT4-teamowner Porsche Eindhoven provides tips and tricks about Circuit- and F1 racing

Paul van Splunteren, Dutch GT4-teamowner Porsche Eindhoven, delivers the second session of the HTC Wildfire launch event in which he shares his tips and tricks about racing on Circuit Park Zandvoort combined with his own car-racing-experience. Paul van Splunteren, will compete in the legendary 24 hours race of Le Mans upcoming June, and has a well established track record in car racing.

Circuit Park Zandvoort, and how to race on a track like this;
A well balanced curve technique on race circuit is extremely important;
Physical health of drivers, heart rates and g-forces;
A thorough comparision between GT3 / GT4 and F1, differences in speed and power;
Don’t forget to enjoy the race experience !!

In think Paul van Splunteren, shared quite some interesting facts about car-racing ! Being an active road cyclist I could grasp a feeling about the heart rates and physical health of the drivers, which is highly underestimated.

Do you also remember that HTC Benelux is the main sponosor of the Dutch GT4 championship and the sponsor of Team Bilderberg Porsche Eindhoven ?

“The partnership of HTC and Team Bilderberg Porsche Eindhoven is a strong combination of companies driven by values like innovation, design and speed. In addition to extensive relationshop marketing closely tied to the Porsche brand, HTC and Team Bilderberg Porsche Eindhoven work together on new mobile applications for car-race enthusiasts and Porsche drivers to get the most out of their HTC Smartphones!”

Picture used with permision of Chris Schotanus, Essay Producties

Porsche Carrera GT3 race-experience on Circuit Park Zandvoort

With all the tips, tricks and shared experience of Paul van Splunteren, Dutch GT4-teamowner Porsche Eindhoven, it was time for our own race experience on Circuit Park Zandvoort in a Porsche Carerra GT3 !

In the group photograph above I’m on the 6th position from the left, next to Mark Moons, Regional Manager of HTC Benelux (wearing a black blouse and holding the helmet in front of me). While at the picture you see the Team Bilderberg Porsche Eindhoven Porsche GT4 car, we were able to drive a Porsche Carrera GT3 on Circuit Park Zandvoort.

I must admit this was my first drive on a race track, so this was an exciting experience. Amazing to feel the power and acceleration of the Porsche Carrera GT3, and the stability riding curves is simply awesome. After a few laps you really start to feel the car and get a good flow in the curves, and you really enjoy the ride. On the straight line to the finish you get a speed of about 200 km/h, but inside the Porsche you simply don’t have the feeling driving that fast. Also the roll cage, race seats and helmet give a nice touch of a real race and get the adrenaline flowing !

I started with the first group of six cars, so I was able to see the other two groups race as well. The experience from the pit lane is different, mainly because it looks so much faster as a spectator. However it was extreme fun to see the others race, while I also enjoyed the other race cars on the track like a Corvette C6 and even a Radical S3, which was also on the track when I raced !! Impressive to hear the torque and mussle from these race cars.

Final thoughts and conclusion

I would like to thank HTC Benelux and Whizpr for the invitation to this special HTC Wildfire product launch on a very interesting location.

Everyone present at the launch event could really experience the results of “a strong combination of companies driven by values like innovation, design and speed“. The synergy and similar mindset of HTC and Team Bilderberg Porsche Eindhoven resulted in a great race experience on Circuit Park Zandvoort. Two great brands with a drive to be a leader come together on the same place: the race track !

Like I mentione before it was my first time riding on a circuit, and the driving behavior and power of the Porsche Carrera GT3 really made it an exciting experience. In order to get an additional idea of the day you might want to check out the set of pictures on my Flickr-account , or the imagebank of Chris Schotanus, Essay Producties.

Finally I do believe that with the HTC Wildfire, HTC has an interesting device to play the retail-game to win and bring both HTC Sense and Android to the masses !

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Microsoft Office 2010 + SharePoint 2010 Launch Event – The Future of Productivity

Remo Knops — Fri, 14 May 2010 12:00:24 +0000

Wednesday I was fortunate to be invited to the local Microsoft Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 launch event in the Netherlands. As you can read in the press release “Microsoft Delivers the Future of Productivity With Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010“:

“Microsoft announced the worldwide availability of Microsoft Office 2010 and Microsoft SharePoint 2010, as well as Microsoft Visio 2010 and Microsoft Project 2010, for business customers worldwide.”

This has two implications: (1) the consumer launch and -availability will be later this year, and (2) Microsoft Visio 2010 and Microsoft Project 2010 are launched as well today, in addition to Microsoft Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010. Due to my background in business administration these are both applications I use often, and I’m happy to see that with the 2010 release of Microsoft Office, -SharePoint, -Visio and -Project, the ribbon is available troughout the Microsoft Office Suite.

Introducing Microsoft Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 within “the smart working better living” framework

The local Microsoft Office 2010 + SharePoint 2010 launch event starts with a presentation that briefly introduces the new products within the boundaries of “smart working better living” framework, which consist of three components:

Technology;
People;
Physical (location);

With the announcement of Microsoft Office 2010 + SharePoint 2010 the technology component is refreshed within the framework (that however has underlying relations with the other components). If you have watched the keynote you will hear Wolfje van Dijk, Strategist of KPN /Getronics refer to this framework as well.

The introduction to Microsoft Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 furthermore addresses the underlying reasoning and background information on devlivering the best productivity suite available on the market. These items are also part of the keynote below, and you will furthermore see some the productivity improvements demo-ed !

Stephen Elop, President, Microsoft Business Division, launches Microsoft Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 in New York

The second part of the launch-event was following live the Microsoft 2010 and SharePoint 2010 launch keynote with Stephen Elop, President, Microsoft Business Division. Very nice to see Wolfje van Dijk, Strategist of the Dutch company KPN/Getronics kicking of the Microsoft Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 product launch by telling the story of KPN/Getronics.

Steve Ballmer explained the Microsoft Ecosystem, the vision of Microsoft and The New Efficiency, during the keynote at TechNet_Live in the Netherlands last year, when Microsoft Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 were announced! In the introductary story of Wolfje van Dijk, Strategist of KPN / Getronics, you could hear that the new efficiency reasoning underlies their decision to roll out Microsoft Office 2010, Microsoft SharePoint 2010 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2010.

Microsoft Office 2010 – Numbers, Math & Financials

An interesting part of the Microsoft Office 2010 launch that matters from a business perspective is some of the math and financials. At first however I would like to look back at some impressive numbers of the Microsoft Office 2010 beta program:

“Microsoft’s Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 beta programs were the largest ever, with three times the number of participants compared with the Office 2007 beta program. As a result, 8.6 million people are already using Office 2010 and related products. In addition, more than 1,000 partners are already building solutions for the 2010 set of products.”

As part of the Microsoft Office 2010 beta programs you could sent feedback to Microsoft about improvements you wanted to see in their software. With 8.6 milion people already using Microsoft Office 2010 products you have a nice pool to user crowdsourcing techniques to improve your products.

Lets continue with the math and financials, that show similar calculations on for example return on investment (=ROI) like in The New Efficiency approach during the launch of Windows 7. Remark that the case study in the Windows 7 scenario was also from Getronics. The Microsoft Office 2010 productivity and efficiency improvements have been research by Forrester Consulting:

“A commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting, “The Total Economic Impact™ of Implementing Microsoft’s Integrated Office Productivity Platform,” May 2010,¹ evaluated the 2010 releases of Office, SharePoint, Exchange and Office Communications Server 2007 R2. The Forrester TEI model employs four fundamental elements including costs, benefits to the entire organization, flexibility and risk. Based on the customer interviews, Forrester constructed a TEI framework for a composite organization and found the ROI to be 301 percent with a payback period of 7.4 months after deployment. The study also found that the composite organization would see more than $13 million in savings over a three-year period and on average, a savings of more than two work weeks per year.”

The payback period of about 7 months is impressive in the current competitive landscape. I wonder however if this the optimum result or the average result of a few case studies. The latter approach would provide a more realistic result in my honest opinion.

In this context I would furthermore like to recommend the Mary-Jo Foley article “Forrester: Google still a distant Office competitor” on the All About Microsoft ZDNet Blog, that provides some additional Forrester consulting insights and compares Google Docs and Microsoft Office.

Stories of Microsoft Partners implementing Microsoft Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010

Stephen Elop, President of Microsoft Business Division, discusses the stories of a few close partners from all over the world, who already implemented Microsoft Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 in their enterprises.

Wolfje van Dijk, Strategist, KPN / Getronics;
Stephen Wilson, Chief Information Officer, NSW Department of Education & Training;
David Glenn, Director Enterprise Operations, Del Monte Foods;
Mark Mastrianni, Manager Global Technology Aquisition & Licensing, General Electric;

I think this is a great approach to share real life practical stories, as a significant part of a product launch keynote. Especially since Microsoft Office is one of the company’s bestselling products. Very cool to see a great role of a Dutch company KPN/Getronics in here.

Microsoft Office 2010 Demotime with Chris Caposella, Sr. Vice President, Microsoft Business Division

Chris Caposella, Sr. Vice President, Microsoft Business Division, provides an excellent 20 minute demo that shows some of the new features and capabilities of Microsoft Office 2010, across the three-screens-and-the-cloud.

A. Microsoft Outlook 2010

Preview pane of your calendar, when a meeting request is sent to you;
Someone can leave a voicemail to your inbox in Microsoft Outlook 2010, based on the great updates for Windows Phone in Microsoft Exchange Server 2010;
Conversation view, gives you the ability to manage conversations in-stead of e-mails. The clean-up feature lets you easily delete the non-unique e-mails in conversations, providing focus on the information that matters;
Quicksteps, reply with a meeting gives the ability to set-up a meeting with all people in a conversation with one single click;
Mailtips, provide really helpfull information about the receivers or distribution lists before you have sent an e-mail. Via the mailtips it is really easy to change these items;
Outlook Social Connector for Microsoft Outlook 2010, transforms Outlook 2010 into a social hub and connects with networks like LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, or SharePoint inside the enterprise;

B. Microsoft SharePoint 2010

Sharepoint 2010, better work together via the social network inside the firewall of the enterprise, improved search scenarios on Sharepoint 2010, enhaced viewers inside the browser;
SharePoint Workspace is the new name for Microsoft Groove and provides “offline use” of SharePoint data on your computer;

C. Microsoft Excel 2010

Sparklines in Excel 2010, give you the ability to create an in-cell-chart of specific data and avoides complex and hard to interpret graphs;
Powerpivot in Excel 2010, facilitates easy sorting and filtering of huge datasets in mermory, that give instant results !
Slicers in Excel 2010, create a visual dashboard of your powerpivot dataset and graph. You can easily user the slicers as filter, with instant updates of the powerpivot chart;

D. Microsoft PowerPoint 2010

Use of rich media like video in PowerPoint 2010 becomes really easy. Editting is really easy, without the need of third-party tools;
Broadcast slideshows directly from within PowerPoint 2010, to easily share your slideshows online no matter if you use a browser, a pc or a Windows Phone with real-time updates across the three-screens-and-a-cloud;

E. Microsoft Office 2010 Webapps

Backstage view in Microsoft Office 2010, gives you enhanced capabilities for the file you are using and let’s you easily share, publish or print the specific file and even “purge” high definition video’s into a lower quality version that saves data;
Microsoft Office 2010 Webapps provide enhanced Microsoft Office 2010 capabilities inside the browser with the same consistent interface and functions;

F. Microsoft Office 2010 on Windows Phone

Office Mobile 2010 applications for Windows Mobile 6.5 are directly available from Windows Marketplace for Mobile;
Windows Phone 7 features the Office hub that facilitates notetaking via OneNote on your Windows Phone 7 device, creating Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents on your Windows Phone 7 device, or simply connect the Windows Phone 7 directly to the SharePoint 2010 environment;

While I used the Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus-, Microsoft Visio 2010- and Microsoft Project 2010 beta on my desktop and reviewed the Microsoft Office Mobile 2010 beta application for Windows Mobile 6.5 there are quite some features that I haven’t used yet. The demo-ed new features in Microsoft Excel 2010 like the Sparklines, Powerpivot and Slicers are simply brilliant improvements. I’m looking forward to the final version Microsoft Office 2010 Webapps as well, in addition to the recently announced Microsoft Docs for Facebook.

Concluding thoughts and wrap-up

It is not a big surprise that Microsoft Office is one of the best selling products in the Microsoft product portfolio. Microsoft has pushed a lot of new productivity and efficiency features into the new product design of Microsoft Office 2010, SharePoint 2010, Microsoft Visio 2010 and Microsoft Project 2010.

Furthermore you can see the awesome results of the three-screens-and-a-cloud-strategy that directs Microsoft, specifically taylored to the Microsoft Office productivity- and efficiency scenario’s.

Stephen Elop, President, Microsoft Business Division: “The productivity solutions delivered in the 2010 release of the Microsoft Office and SharePoint, help our customers, end-users and IT professionals to save, grow and innovate !”
Chris Caposella, Sr. Vice President, Microsoft Business Division: “We strive to build the best productivity experience on your pc, phone, browser and deliver the cloud on your terms!”

I think these quotes clearly show the commitment and strategic goals of the Microsoft Business Division. I personally like the consistent user interface across the three-screens, for example with the introduction of the ribbon in Microsoft Visio 2010 and Microsoft Project 2010.

Windows Phone 7, Windows Mobile 6.5 and … Symbian S60, MeeGo ?

As a Windows Phone enthusiast I’m really looking forward to experience the Microsoft Office 2010 Mobile applications in the Office Hub on Windows Phone 7. I have already updated my Windows Phones (HTC HD2 and HTC Snap) to the Microsoft Office Mobile 2010 applications, that really foster huge improvements over the past mobile versions.

Who of you remembers ”Microsoft and Nokia form Global Alliance for Mobile Productivity Solutions” last year. I’m really curious to ind out if some of the Microsoft Office 2010 goodness will find its way on Nokia devices as well (in addition to Windows Phone). Nokia still ships an impressive ammount of phones, so I personally would expect such a strategic move within the Microsoft Office 2010 context, however this is pure speculation from my side.

SharePoint – Opportunities for the Ecosystem

I haven’t taken a deep-dive into the technology part of SharePoint, however I can understand the great business opportunities for the Microsoft Ecosystem that are supported with some impressive financial numbers.

“The SharePoint integration services opportunity for Microsoft partners and developers today is $5.6 billion and is expected to grow to $6.7 billion in 2011, according to Microsoft data.”

It is really a no brainer to see how Microsoft invests in new developments that drive the IT ecosystem and indirectly become the driver of economic growth, like you could see Steve Ballmer back-up with hard numbers during the TechNet_Live keynote.

Finally I don’t visit the headquarters of Microsoft Netherlands that often, so it was great to be there, experience the corporate culture, and most important I have met some awesome, creative and committed employees from different parts of the Microsoft organization. I would like to thank Microsoft Netherlands for inviting me to the Microsoft Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 launch event.

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Remo Knops’ Brain Bits – Sharing news bits in Tumblr style !

Remo Knops — Mon, 03 May 2010 10:45:51 +0000

Yesterday I silently launched the Remo Knops’ Brain Bits website, as a complement to the Remo Knops’ Personal Blog and MobilityMinded.

You might remember the article “Mobile Technology related articles publiched @ MobilityMinded.com” last year, in which I explained my thoughts about this strategic decision. The result however was an increased and a significant focus on professional-related content to be published on this blog. It was a first step of strategic re-configuring and re-positioning.

In the same article I briefly addressed the increasing importance of social networks like -for example- Twitter and Facebook. Social networks are not only new distribution channels for marketing purposes, but have become interesting, highly valuable sources of rich information on the tip of your mouse button, as well. The information flows on social networks have super fast, real-time characteristics, and it would be extremely time-consuming if you wanted to write 500+ word-articles about all the great news out there.

“A bit is the basic unit of information in computing and telecommunications; it is the amount of information that can be stored by a digital device or other physical system that can normally exist in only two distinct states. There are several units of information which are defined as multiples of bits, such as byte, kilobit or megabyte, etc. Computers usually manipulate bits in groups of a fixed size. [...] ”

Remo Knops’ Brain Bits a complement to Remo Knops’ Personal Blog

Remo Knops’ Brain Bits will cover a wider spectrum of these real-time interesting news bits from various types, that trigger my brain and may valuable for other readers.

While I still will stay deeply committed to write extensive and in-depth articles on this blog as well as on MobilityMinded, I will be able to share interesting information in a shorter and more time-friendly format complementary to this blog.

I really hope you will find some value in the near-future-shared content on Remo Knops’ Brain Bits, and it would be nice if you check back on this website for more extensive and in-depth articles in the context of my professional innovation and entrepreneurship field. You could also connect via one or more social networks like Twitter or Facebook.

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Android Experience 2010 – Layar Business Models and the Android Ecosystem

Remo Knops — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 09:00:00 +0000

I was fortunate being invited to attend the highly succesful first edition of the Android Experience, an event that adresses the Android ecosystem from different perspectives.

In this article I will briefly summarize some of the highlights of Android Experience 2010 @ the Amsterdam Convention Factory.

On the MobilityMinded website I have written an extensive event report, inline with the following structure:

The importance of openness for innovation – Vincent Everts, trendwatcher;
The mobile future is bright and open, the impact of Android – Ed Achterberg, founder, CEO and senior research analyst at Telecompaper;
The power of Android: User experience is key – Mark Moons, Regional Director Benelux HTC;
Developing Apps: Doing business making money – Raimo van der Klein, Chief Exectutive Officer of Layar;
Banking with apps – David-Jan Janse, Manager of Rabo Mobile, Rabobank Netherlands;

The highlights of Android Experience 2010, in my personal opinion, are marked in itallic in the list structure above.

The mobile future is bright and open, the impact of Android – Ed Achterberg, founder, CEO and senior research analyst at Telecompaper;

I really liked the objective scientific approach of Ed Achterberg, founder, CEO and senior research analyst at Telecompaper. While some very interesting facts about the competitive mobile landscape were presented, Ed Achterberg also made some points that really make you think.

The misuse of the term personal computer for a desktop computer at home, while you take your smartphone with you all the time. A smartphone, which has taken over a lot of computer capabilities, is probably the most personal electronic device. Also the impact of other devices, like the netbook, e-book readers and devices like the Apple iPad will change the landscape;
Ed Achterberg presented a graph with the indexed results of the simplicity of device configuration at first use. Honestly I didn’t expect this measurements. However with the average age of the Dutch society rising, fast and easy configuration for the Joe Average end-user becomes critical, with increase of complexity among mobile electronic devices;
The Android operating system has got a very explosive growth curve with rapid development cycles. From the launch of the HTC Dream, which was the first Android device several versions of the Android OS have been released, 1.5 , 1.6 , 2.0 , 2.1 and a variety of handset manufacturer customizations. The open source nature has driven the growth of the platform, but it also fragments to Android OS at a fast rate. An interesting question is if Google should step up and close the open source model a little. Ed Achterberg suggests that a more uniform quality and user exprience could help the Android OS.

Especially about this last bullet I had some discussion about, among mobile friends and on Twitter with for example JeanPaul Horn (Planet Android / iPhoneclub) and Arnoud Wokke (Tweakers). I’m also curious if and how Google tries to manage the Android Marketplace with an explosive growth of developed applications (indexing and categorizing applications vs. sending in new applications) ?

The power of Android: User experience is key – Mark Moons, Regional Director Benelux HTC;

Mark Moons, Regional Director Benelux HTC, builds further on the market figures from the previous session of Ed Achterberg by sharing the HTC marketshares and the position of the Android OS in the Dutch mobile market.

A significant part of the session is about the Android ecosystem. Mark Moons explains the necessity of a healthy ecosystem in which the different players challenge each other and drive true innocation. In this light both open- and closed ecosystem are addressed, as well as the opportunity to educate end-users and create a competitive advantage for retailers.

The main conclusion is that an operating system with a healty ecosystem and an excellent user experience will be sustainable on the long term. According to Mark Moons, “Android will become the second operating system in the Netherlands within two years“.

Picture used with permission of Daphne Channa Horn, Independent Photographer

Developing Apps: Doing business making money – Raimo van der Klein, Chief Exectutive Officer of Layar;

Raimo van der Klein, Chief Exectutive Officer of Layar, is the fourth speaker on the Android Experience, and shares the challenges, opportunities and reconfigurations of business model and strategy in time of Layar.

Layar now aimes at becoming a platform (in contrast with the initial content focus) on top of which other developers can build their services, and in which Layar more or less takes care of a stable platform/environment, the distribution, the installed userbase and pre-installation on Android smartphones, for example the Samsung Galaxy S.

Raimo van der Klein explains the different business models and some specific business details in an interview with Vincent Everts (in Dutch and remark that Android World = Android Experience, Ed Achterberg is from Telecompaper not from Telecomworld)

THE FACTS

Layar had 3-5 business models from the start about a year ago and now;
Layar was one of five concepts the Layar team planned to do, however now there is fulltime focus on Layar only;
32 people are working on Layar;
Layar is funded (with venture capital) for E2.5 milion euro;
2700 Layar developers worldwide;
450 Layars published already and 1700 Layars in development;

THE BUSINESS MODELS

Content Layars, payment for hosting;
Opening the platform, payment when content is published, for example with a monthly fee;
Analytics, premium payments for advanced analytics;
Currently Layar focusses on building and expanding the brand, distribution and things like the pre-installation deal with Samsung;

AND ALSO

Games and tourists guides will become available in Layar in the near future (remark business model 2 in the list above);
Currently Layar has more end-users on Android devices than on the Apple iPhone devices;
The release of every Android device caused some change in the Layar code. Upcoming year about 90 handsets, and 2 people working fulltime on a stable Layar experience on all these devices;
Looking at a collaboration with Nokia (Symbian, Meamo). Nokia is stil the largest handset manufacturer that ships 400 milion handset per year;
Nokia plays the retail game very strong and pushing the distribution among stores;

Raimo van der Klein illustrates the Layar platform startegy with a new venture: TAB worldmedia, who connect augmented reality with outdoor advertising. I was fortunate to talk with Remco Vroom and Johannes la Poutre in the late afternoon, which was highly interesting.

At first I’m glad that Raimo van der Klein is willing to share these details on a business model level. It is very interesting, and these facts simply illustrate that business model innovation and the constant search for new strategic opportunities and exapnding competitive advantage are a necessity for every entrepreneur.

I’m curious if the Layar team used a business model design tool, like the business model canvas proposed by business model expert Alexander Osterwalder.

Final thoughts and wrap-up

I would like to compliment everyone who has been involved with the organization of the first edition of the Android Experience. The great industrial atmosphere of the Amsterdam Convention Factory was excellent for a technology event like this.

In addition to the excellent presentations above, Android Experience was also about meeting old friends (developers, press, bloggers, handset manufacturers, distributors) and meeting new friends. During and after the Planet Android App Challenge 2010, I had a few drinks with Patrick de Laive of the Next Web. A great guy with an exceptional entrepreneurial drive.

Other examples of this creativity and entrepreneurship are my discussion with the guys from TAB Worldmedia, or the described presentation of Raimo van der Klein, Chief Exectutive Officer of Layar, and Koen Krijns of Hardware.info with the barcode scanning application for Android.

The conclusion is simple, first edition of the Android Experience was a huge success !!

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Möbius Conference 2009 (Seattle, United States) – Short Trip Report

Remo Knops — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 23:45:11 +0000

In November it was time for the annual invitation-only Möbius conference, and I was one of the very fortunate ones to be invited for this great event. The Möbius conference 2009 was held in Seattle, and I was very excited about my first visit to one of the top 10 tech cities in the world.

In this article I will provide a short section with background information about Möbius, and than focus on this year’s Möbius conference and the discussed contents (which I’m allowed to share).

What is Möbius ?

For those of you who don’t have a clue what Möbius is about, there is a pretty nice definition on the Möbius website:

“Möbius is an invitation-only community of the world’s most influential technology pundits and online writers. The collective insights, opinions and influence of Möbius drives market trends, industry buzz and the buying behavior of people worldwide. Möbians interact behind the scenes with companies big and small to shape the direction of devices, services, pricing, design and the culture of consumer technology.”

You can furthermore read that Mobius is about a never ending conversation, which is to some extent a reflection of the word Möbius (strip) and its mathematical properties. However open dicussions and ongoing conversations about mobile technology and closely related topics are the essence of the Möbius group.

Möbius Conference 2009

Arne Hess, Windows Mobile MVP and Editor in Chief of the::unwired describes a Möbius conference in an article on his website as:

“Möbius isn’t just another blogger, press or analysts briefing but the main part of the whole conference it is the vital interaction and discussion between the attendees, Microsoft and its partners. It’s 48 hours of discussions, sharing information and thoughts about the mobile and wireless future.”

In order to give you an idea about who is taking part in these discussions I would like to start with providing an overview of the attendees of the 2009 Möbius conference in Seattle:

Alex Gay, Akihabara News
Arne Hess, the::unwired
Chris Ziegler, Engadget Mobile
Dieter Bohn, Smartphone Experts
Gianni Carfagno, SoloPalmari.com
Jenneth Orantia, freelance writer
Jerome Tranie, MobiFrance
Derrick Ngan, Pocket PC Channel
Joel Evans, Geek.com
Judie Lipsett, Gear Diary
Leigh Geary, Cool Smartphone
Lisa Gade, MobileTechReview
Matt Miller, ZDNet Smartphones & Cell Phones
Michael Gartenberg, Gartenblog
Paul O’Brien, MoDaCo.com
Philip Berne, InfoSync World
Rafe Blandford, All About Symbian
Remo Knops, MobilityMinded
Rich Brome, PhoneScoop
Ryan Block, GDGT
Sacha Fuentes, Xataka.com
Sascha Segan, Gear Log
Shane Chiang, Mobinauts
Vincent Nguyen, Slash Gear

As you can see this is a great group of people, and I’m very fortunate to have met the probably smartest people in the mobile sector. Not only in terms of geographical location, but also in terms of formal education, type of website and even mobile platform it is a very diverse group. You can imagine that this adds some great value to the discussions. For example it is great to hear Rafe Blandford share his thoughts about the Symbian platform and the latest Symbian devices.

As you can read in the reports of the Mobius conference 2007 in Amsterdam (report day 1, report day 2, report day 3) there is always a great mix of sessions, about which we can write and sessions that are under the Mobius NDA handshake. Unfortunately this year the almost complete conference were NDA sessions, so I won’t be able to share reports like back in 2007.

However Jason Dunn, Windows Mobile- & Zune MVP and Editor in Chief of ThoughtsMedia, has written an excellent article (page 1, page 2) on the Windows Phone Thoughts website, which I would highly recommend you to read. Also Jenneth Orantia, freelance writer, has managed to write a trip report on the Gadget Monkeys blog. I think both these article should give you an idea about the Mobius 2009 conference.

Conclusive thoughts

I would like to start the concluding section with the fact that I really love Seattle as a city. Despite it was pretty cold and rainy (even for a Dutch guy), it is such a great city where you can really feel the creative city approach, which in concept has been described by visionary Charles Landry. It was for example great fun to visit the first Starbucks ever, and Pike Place Market together with Shane Chiang and Sacha Fuentes. I will definitely visite Seattle again in the future, it really felt like home there !

Furthermore the Mobius Conference 2009 was -in my perception- very successful. It is such a privelege to meet such smart and creative people from all over the world and engage in discussions with them about the future of (windows) mobile. Honestly the Mobius Conference has really given me a creative boost, and kept me going back home !!

I would really like to explicitly thank Microsoft for the inviting me to the event, I have been in a very fortunate position ! An addtional great many thanks to Microsoft for hooking all of us up with a Zune HD 32GB, which is an amazing device and much more than a mediaplayer. The Zune HD isn’t for sale in the Netherlands, so that makes it really special. Furthermore a great many thanks to HTC for giving us an HTC HD2, the most powerful Windows Phone on the market. Amazing, and blazing fast !

To wrap up I really had an amazing time in Seattle, it was great to catch-up with old friends, meet new friends and I finally would like to thank everyone again who contributed to the great conference !!

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Vision on the Future – A Symposium @ University of Twente

Remo Knops — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 19:00:26 +0000

On October 21st 2009 student association Stress, from the faculty School of Management and Governance, organized a symposium with the central theme ”Vision on the Future“.

According to the symposium leaflet the goal is “to give you as a student an impression fo what the market will look like in five years. [...] most students will be looking for a job by that time [...]” In the concluding section Iwill evaluate if this goal has been met for me personally. Let’s kick-off quickly with the first part of the opening speech.

Opening speech by Professor Ir. Roel Pieper

In this first section I will discuss a few interesting topics from the opening speech of professor Ir. Roel Pieper. Professor Pieper starts his presentation with the following statement on the title slide: “Value creation, nothing else matters.”

This task of value creation is perfectly suited for the entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs, since entrepreneurship is an engine of the economy especially in the current hard economic times.

Every new idea has a hype cycle

The first topic Iwould like to hightly is the so called hype cycle. But what is a hype cycle ? This is a concept developed by Gartner Research in 1995, and a formal definition of the concept and an explenation of the different phases can be found on a special hype cycle section of the Gartner Research website .

“A Hype Cycle is a graphic representation of the maturity, adoption and business application of specific technologies. Gartner has used Hype Cycles to characterize the over-enthusiasm or “hype” and subsequent disappointment that typically happens with the introduction of new technologies. [...]“

A hype cycle consists of five different phases:

Technology Trigger;
Peak of Inflated Expectations;
Trough of Disillusionment;
Slope of Enlightenment;
Plateau of Productivity;

Both in the “Gartner’s Hype Cycle Special Report for 2005” and the more recent press release “Gartner’s 2009 Hype Cycle Special Report Evaluates Maturity of 1,650 Technologies” give you some practical examples of using the hype cycle.

The triangle of value creation

The second topic I would like to discuss is the by Professor Pieper presented “triangle of value creation”. The triangle of value creation is a simple easy to use model, which can help you to understand some of the basic dynamics of a business (model) and the underlying relations.

Each variable in the triangle is relevent, and really understanding these variables and the relations is a huge advantage for the entrepreneur (in my personal opinion). Engineers are often trained to develop the best available technology on the market, but according to the triangle of value creation, technology only will not bring you success. Also if you just have the money and financials only, it won’t do it. If you have great market knowledge and market access only, it sometimes can work and result in success.

However the main overall idea of the triangle of value creation is that you clearly think about all the three key variables, the underlying relations, and a way to balance them (since each variable is relevant). With the triangle of value creation model you don’t think about just one aspect, and in my personal peception I can see clear links with the design of a business model, for example the design tools presented by Alexander Osterwalder.

Value stack analysis

Another important aspect in the process of value creation is a value stack analysis. The picture above gives a graphical representation of the general industry value chain, and let’s assume an entrepreneur has started the yellow company in the middle of the top row.

It is not hard to imagine that there is a distribution of the total value across the complete industry value chain (from left to right), and therefore for the entrepreneur it is important to understand which part of the total value stack is for his yellow company. Another example is for example a manufacturing company which delivers parts of a certain end-product that is directly sold to a customer. In this case it is important to understand what value the parts represent of the total value of the end-product.

In the value stack analysis you should also think about aspects like core ip and patents, brand value, distribution network or the power of purchasing.

Creating value top 10 !

The last topic I wanted to share from the opening speech of professor Roel Pieper is an overview of one of his slides, the so called creating value top 10 !!

Accept that you win and lose;
Leadership- responsibility – commitment;
People quality;
Milestones;
Who wins and who loses;
The composition of the market;
Multi-sourcing and -partners;
Communication website;
Communication – verbal pitch;
Scalability – value triangle – value stack;

While this top 10 consists of some great items to think about, you might have noticed that in the sections above the last point is almost completely outlined. With the creating value top 10, I would like to end the opening speech section, and provide you with an idea of two workshops (out of four), which I attended in the afternoon program of the vision on the future symposium.

Workshop 1 – A close look at the IT (Structures) @ Centre for Information and Communication Technology, part of the Dutch Tax Administration

This workshop is organized by Saco Bekius of the Centre for Information and Communication Technology and Professor Dr. Jos van Hillegersberg from University of Twente. I don’t have a formal education in computer science and information technology, so with events like this symposium I always try to broaden my horizon and move out of your own professional field.

On the website of the Dutch Tax Administration you can read the following description of the Centre for Information and Communication Technology:

“The approximately 3,000 staff members of the Centre for Information and Communication Technology (B/CICT) in Apeldoorn develop, manage and monitor the entire computer system used by the more than 30,000 staff members of the Tax and Customs Administration. This makes B/CICT one of the largest internal ICT organisations in the Netherlands.”

It isn’t a big surprise that this part of the Dutch Tax Administration is of vital importance of the whole Tax Administration organization. In other words you could call it the backbone of the organization, which therefore makes it very interesting to discuss.

The impact of e-service trends @ the Dutch Tax Administration

Key e-services trends;
Current services and organization of the Dutch Tax Administration;

In this first part of the workshop the attendees should brainstorm and engage in an open discussion on how e-services trends will have an impact on the Dutch Tax Administration. What should the Dutch Tax Administration of the future look like ?

The importance of organizational and IT architecture @ the Dutch Tax Administraion

Architecture modelling and legacy architecture transformation;
Current organizational- and IT architecture of the Dutch Tax Administraion;

The second part also consited of an open discussion on what should happen in organization, processes and IT to achieve the Dutch Tax Administration of the future. Due to the wide variety of professional- and educational backgrounds of the attendees these discussions were great, interesting and highly valuable.

Personally I learned some more aspectes about e-services trends and IT architecture as well as legacy architecture transformations and their organizational impact.

Workshop 2 – International Risk Management @ Storck Aerospace

This workshop is organized by Joanne Geurts, Floor Richters & Robert Imhof of Storck Aerospace and Professor Dr. Rez Kabir from University of Twente.

On the Storck Aerospace website, you can find a formal description from this interesting business unit of Storck B.V., which will be producing parts for the Joint Strike Fighter:

“Stork Aerospace designs, develops and produces advanced structures and electrical systems for the aerospace and defence industry and supplies integrated maintenance services and products to aircraft owners and operators. The Aerospace group carries out these activities with 3,532 employees.”

It won’t be hard to imagine that production of parts of a multimillion euro fighter plane, involves accurate management of high-end product specifications, safety regulations, challenges for manufacturing and tracebility. In the light of these aspects this workshop consists of a business case where you need to assess the risks of setting up a factory in Chili, Soutch America.

The used method for analyzing the risks is the “Gross Hazard Analysis“, which I will discuss step by step below:

Step 1 – Determine scope

Step 2A – Identify risk

Is the risk caused by human, technical failure, or nature ?

Step 2B – Asses risk

It is very important to understand the difference between danger and risk, since these are two very different concepts. Danger = potential treat for people or business and is not quanitified !

Risk = severence * probability (quantifiable !!) with severence: I – catastrophic, II – critical, III, IV and with probability: A, B, C, D, E, F

Step 3 - Determine the Risk Profile

With help of the graph above you can create a risk profile, which consists of the several indiviual risks you thought about in the previous steps. This Risk profile gives you an overview of the portfolio of different individual risks. A simple rule or constraint is that all risks above the blue line need to be mitigated. In other words the risk profile is higher if many of the individual risks are above the blue line.

Step 4 - Making a decision about the risk

In this final step you need to make a decision to (1) eliminate, (2) reduce, (3) transfer or (4) accept the risk(s).

In addition to the application of the Gross Hazard Analysis in a Storck Business Case, Professor Dr. Rez. Kabir held an excellent presentation about International Financial Risk Management. This was a great complementary, but very insightful presentation (certainly in the current economic times). Professor Dr. Rez Kabir discussed a well tought-out financial risk analysis of Storck Aerospace based on the publically available information (like press releases and annual year reports).

Concluding thoughts and wrap-up

At first I would like to compliment the student association Stress with the excellent organization of the Vision on the future symposium. At first a highly interesting and valuable opening speech, which addressed both scientific theoretical- and business practical aspects.

Second the organizers of the Vision on the future symposium were able to collaborate with highly interesting companies to participate in the workshops. You could only choose two out of four workshops to attend, so I missed the workshop about Logistics @ Schiphol Group (however have done a Balance Score Card case about the Schiphol Group in the past) and Human Resource Management @ Kock.

Furthermore the workshops during events like a symposium are great opportunities to broaden your horizon and the challenge is to show an excellent performance in a different professional- or education field. Despite I don’t have a formal educational background in Computer Science and IT, both the background as a Mechnical Engineer and Business Administration (Business Model Innovation & Technical Innovation) helped to add real value to the discussions. In the second workshop I could see some parallels of underlying concepts of International Risk Management and Failure Mode and Effects Analysis which I knew from my Mechnical Engineering background.

In the traditional plenary session all the different topics of opening speech and workshops are connected, where students needed to share their experiences and knowledge from the particular workshop(s) they attended. After a final round of good discussions, the closing words of the Vision on the future symposium chairman and a drink, I could look back at a highly interesting day !!

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