NW Start Up 2.0 is the North West’s premier event for software entrepreneurs and investment community to meet under one roof in an informal setting. Come along to our next event on the 14th of June 2007 at KPMG Manchester for an evening of conversation and potential deal making. We aim to encourage creative thinking.

The doors will be open at 18:15 hrs and we have an amazing line of speakers from serial entrepreneurs (Ajaz Ahmed of Freeserve and Alain Falys of OB10) to early stage organisations (David Ingram of Izimi), VCs (xxx) and technology experts (Sam Sethi of Vecosys).

The key theme continues to be funding with each speaker sharing their experiences and thoughts, some of these being:

+ Ajaz Ahmed – Look back at Freeserve, his current portfolio and investment opportunities that interests him including finding the next Freeserve opportunity.
+ Sam Sethi – Creation of blognation, the technology scene and raising money and Commercialising blogging.
+ Alain Falys – Strategy of OB10, beyond OB10 and the value Omnis Mundi brings
+ David Ingram – Fund raising and market launch through bloggers in Silican Valley.

Share a glass of wine and canapes. Mingle with entrepreneurs, investors and deal makers. Find like minded individuals. Grow your network. Make it a night to remember.

For the third time, KPMG has kindly volunteered to sponsor the event. The event is brought to you by ebdex Ltd. Please visit http://www.nwstartup20.co.uk to register. It is a free event.

Tags: NW StartUp 2.0, Ajaz Ahmed, Sam Sethi, Alain Falys, David Ingram, Izimi, Freeserve, OB10, Omnis Mundi, Blognation, Vecosys

This infact has nothing to do with SAP, except that the conversation started at SAP. It all started when Maggie started drawing a deer like creature, she called a Moose. So what is the difference between a Moose, an Elk and a Samber? Prashanth was convinced that there is no such animal called Samber. He comes from India and I come from Sri Lanka. So here is the truth, all in one place.

Now what’s this got to do with a pissing Rhino? Only that my wife photographed it whilst visiting Knowsely Safari Park last Sunday and it makes the story more interesting. I am having problem uploading it – will try later.

Tags: Humour

OpenCoffee Manchester is a setting for technology entrepreneurs, investors and deal makers to meet like minded individuals in an informal setting. Due to number of requests from you, I have changed the start up time of OpenCoffee Manchester to 10:00 am. The next event will be on 22nd May 2007 at the same venue, i.e. Starbucks, Television House, 10, Mount St, Manchester, Manchester M2 5NT. Currently 9 people have registered to attend this event. Please spread the word. If you would like to attend, please register here. We need a bigger crowd to sustain these events. Its free to attend. You just pay for coffee. We are featured second on OpenCoffeeClub, next to London. Here are some photos from OpenCoffee events across the globe.

I am also looking for a venue with free Wi Fi. If you know of such location, please do let me know. It does not need to be in the City Centre, e.g. it could be at Borders in Stockport (with large car park) or Trafford Centre (again with large car park).

Tags: OpenCoffee, OpenCoffee Manchester

Here is what bloggers had to say…courtesy of Craig Cmehil..have fun

Tags: SAP SAPPHIRE 07 VIENNA, SAP, Bloggers, Craig Cmehil

Rumour has it that SAP is taking steps to ditch use of Oracle database for IBM’s DB2. The annual cost for use of Oracle database is around $800m, according to Paul Bhuhi, ERP Solutions Director of Computer Sciences Corporation, one of the largest system integrators in the world. Will this inflate the dirty tricks campaign run by Oracle?

Talking to couple of bloggers (DennisH and JamesG), there has been rumours in the past of an alliance with MySQL. If SAP is a listening company and driven by customer requirements, as they claim it, then alienating customers by imposing on a particular database does not sound like the right strategy. Delivery of MySQL on a global basis is also questionable.

Quick googling suggests that this issue was also discussed about a year ago at SAP SAPPHIRE. Statistics suggest that 60% of SAP customers run SAP applications on Oracle databases. Oracle is one of the companies that is exhibiting at SAP SAPPHIRE 07 in Vienna whilst running dirty tricks campaign at the same time.

Tags: Oracle, SAP, SAP SAPPHIRE 07 VIENNA, DB2, IBM, CSC, Computer Sciences Corporation, James Governor, Dennis Howlett,  MySQL

Here is a list of blog posts from the bloggers sponsored by SAP, attending SAP European annual event in Vienna:

1. David Terrar - Business Two Zero
   • SAP’s mid market strategy with SaaS
   • SAPPHIRE 07 asides
   • SAP’s mid market strategy, A1S and a demo of sorts
   • Kagermann’s keynote – numbers and confidence at the speed of change
   • Austrian hospitality, the B-8 and cultural diversity
   • Heading for Vienna and SAPPHIRE 07
2. Axel Angeli - The Mentors of the Service Oriented Architecture
3. Craig Cmehil – Community Evangelist at SAP AG - Podcasting + live video
   • Looks can be deceiving…
   • Finally arrived…
4. Maggie Fox - Social Media Group
   • Social Media Today Podcast – Sapphire ‘07 Vienna
   • Someone’s been drinking the Kool-AID…
   • Why on earth did SAP invite me to Sapphire?
5. James Governor - MonkChips
   • Henning Kagermann, SAP CEO, meets the bloggers
6. Dennis Howlett - AccMan
   • Kudos to Bruno
   • Oracle’s tastelessness
7. Thomas Otter - Vendorprisey
   • Live blogging Kagermann’s Vienna Sapphire
8. Prashanth Rai - CIO Weblog
   • Innovation Cycle – SAP SME Initiative – Geoffrey Moore Keynote
   • SAP’s SME Portifolio
   • Bloggers meet Henning Kagermann at Vienna
   • Henning Kaggerman Keynote – 1 (SAPPHIRE VIENNA)
   • Bloggers meet up at Sapphire Vienna?
9. Sigurd Rinde - Forthcoming
   • SAP Sapphire short notes #5
   • SAP Sapphire short notes #4
   • SAP Sapphire short notes #3
   • SAP Sapphire short notes #2
   • SAP Sapphire short notes #1
10. Charlie Wood - Moonwatcher
    • More Quotes
    • SAP’s Market Strategy SVP "Religious About SaaS"
    • Quotes from SAPPHIRE
    • Craig Cmehil Gets His T-Shirt Bill
    • On Confidence
    • Dinner with the B-8
    • Made it to Vienna
11. Dale Vile - Freeform Dynamics Blog
12. Manoj Ranaweera - Manoj Ranaweera EIPP Blog – oh that’s me!
    • First Day @ SAP SAPPHIRE 07 VIENNAFirst Day @ SAP SAPPHIRE 07 VIENNA

I will be updating the list as I uncover more stories. Keep tuned!

Tags: SAP, SAP SAPPHIRE 07, Axel Angeli, Craig Cmehil, Maggie Fox, James Governor, Dennis Howlett, Thomas Otter, Prashanth Rai, Sigurd Rinde, David Terrar, Charlie Wood, Dale Vile

By the time I set foot in the Conference Hall, the show has more or less finished and the last session of the day for bloggers was in full swing with Dennis Moore of SAP Labs. My journey started at 7 am, taxi to airport, Manchester to Charles De Gaule, and from there to Vienna. Then I had the same idea as David Terrar of trying out the public transport. Took CAT (express train from Airport to City Centre) to Wien Mitte, then Underground to Le Meridian, dumped the bag, back in the Underground, this time to Wien Nord, finally tram to Masse, where the Conference Centre was located. All was fine, except the temperature was perhaps twice of Manchester. It took me completely by surprise – bucket load of sweat!

Here are two photos of the last session.

L to R: Charlie, Maggie, DennisM, Craig, Sig and David

DennisM spoke about Twitter, SAP’s Enterprise Search, SOA mashups, widgets, etc etc. But most interesting insight I took away was the cultural difference between Oracle and SAP as he saw it. According to Dennis, Oracle is about:

• Command and control
• Founder still in control
• Centralised control
• Top down control
• Confrontational
• Attack competition

According to DennisM, Sap is about:

• Customer focus – will only deliver if customers demand it
• Board decision is start of the discussion, and not the end of the discussion as in the case of Oracle

L to R: Charlie, Axel, Prashanth, etc listening to Dennis Moore.

I got the feeling that DennisM was not that comfortable talking to bloggers and was in bit of a rush to get away. I did managed to query how SAP views customer pain around document exchange. It was not really Dennis’s forte. I am hoping for a better answer tomorrow.

Tags: SAP SAPPHIRE 07 VIENNA

As I was in London on last Thursday, I dropped in at OpenCoffee London (on the 5th floor of Waterstones in Piccadilly) organised by Saul Klein of Index Ventures. Unfortunately, Saul was not there, but met Sayula Kirby who works closely with Saul. We spoke about the next NW StartUp 2.0 event, which will be on 14th June 2007 at KPMG Manchester. I am interested in getting Saul to attend this event as a speaker.

Familiar faces I met include:

1. Sam Sethi of Blognation – I actually met Sam the previous night for a tea (and a glass of wine) at his place and discussed about blognation (saw demo screens – I am beginning to like the theme), X-Forms, etc etc. In fact I met the whole family. His two daughters are the same age as my two daughters. I need to get my eldest to blog again. Forgot to ask whether Sam’s daughter got a blog.
2. David Terrar of Twinfield and D Squared C – Will be meeting David again at SAP SAPPHIRE 07 in Vienna next week.
3. Phil Hemsted of Yuuguu from that great city, Manchester.
4. Paul Walsh of Segala – Paul, you are everywhere! Great to see you again. Hope you can join the next NW StartUp 2.0 event.
5. Andrew Doe of gizme – met for the second time. He is one of the 100 Dot.com Entrepreneurs recognised by e-Consultancy.com, now functioning as a business angel. Andrew was also an adviser to NWDA, same as was Phil Hemsted.

Few new faces I met:

1. Pete Smith and Ian Hogarth – They are moving to US having secured small amount of seed-corn funding from the Y-Combinator to test their idea. Wow, what a start! Do let me know if you know the name of their company.
2. Walter Higgins, founder & CEO of Sxoop Technologies from Ireland. Read David Terrar’s blog post for an interesting insight to his business.
3. Tom Gordan – CEO of Alien Pants.  I interrupted a conversation Tom was having with Jason Ball of London Seed Capital. According to Tom, his business is profitable, has been revenue generating for number of years, and meets his business plan regularly. He need extra capital for marketing. He is not getting the required attention from the VC community. To me, this looks like a deal for debt finance. My suggestion was, engage with all of the primary lenders (not just one), failing this, target secondary lenders. It did not look like a proposition for Venture Capital. He also has a problem of striking partnerships with companies like Microsoft. This is one of my skills from the days of ebdex. Tom, do get in touch if you need any help. Having had a look at his site, I see T-Mobile as a client. If so, where is the problem?
4. Justin Hayward of Manning Selvage & Lee – He has access to capital and interested in projects above £1.5m.
5. Yarden Yaroshevski of Linkadoo Communications.
6. Damon J Oldcorn, CEO of Zebtab – what a character! I like this guy.
7. Chritiano G Betta of teachr.tv, fourstarters.com, ibbydibby.com.
8. Kai Ian Hendry
9. Jeremy Knight, VP of events and publishing and Darren Harper of Library House. I am interested in doing an event with these guys in the North West. They are kings of events, different league to me and Simon Grice!

London event was many times better than the Manchester event. We simply need to find a way to attract more people to OpenCoffee Manchester. DT, thanks for the photos.

Tags: OpenCoffee, OpenCoffee London, David Terrar, Sam Sethi, Saul Klein, Index Ventures, Y-Combinator, Phil Hemsted, Yuuguu, Sxoop, Library House, Zebtab, startups, entrepreneurship, funding, Andrew Doe

For some unknown reason, SAP is sponsoring me to attend their European gig, SAP SAPPHIRE 07 in Vienna from 14th to 16th of May 2007. I am no A-list blogger. In fact, since changing the URL, I have struggled to get into the top 200,000 of the world wide blogs tracked by Technorati.

So why did SAP invite me?

1. Is this because Oracle was a partner of ebdex and SAP was not?
2. Or is it because I registered on SAP enquiring about a possible partnership opportunity?
3. Or is it because I am perhaps the only blogger ranting about e-invoicing, EIPP and document exchanges? There are few well known blogs on sourcing but not on my subject area, as far as I can figure out.

I am chuffed to join a pool of well known bloggers attending this event. Here is the list:

1. Axel Angeli - The Mentors of the Service Oriented Architecture
2. Craig Cmehil – Community Evangelist at SAP AG - Podcasting + live video
3. Maggie Fox - Social Media Group
4. James Governor - MonkChips
5. Dennis Howlett - AccMan
6. Thomas Otter - Vendorprisey
7. Prashanth Rai - CIO Weblog
8. Sigurd Rinde - Forthcoming
9. David Terrar - Business Two Zero
10. Charlie Wood - Moonwatcher
11. Dale Vile - Freeform Dynamics Blog
12. Manoj Ranaweera - Manoj Ranaweera EIPP Blog – oh that’s me!

Now, I must admit, I know Dennis Howlett and David Terrar very well and have met Sig once. Most of the others are new to me. These days, I do not get much time to visit other’s blogs let alone do blogging. I spent most of the time in Bourne End where Causeway Technologies is based at, and the Travel Inn I stays in has no access to the Internet. Nice excuse, hah!

I nicked following links from Craig’s blog. They should help you to track the event.

• SAP SAPPHIRE ’07 on del.icio.us
• SAP SAPPHIRE ’07 on Technorati
• SAP SAPPHIRE ’07 on flickr

It will no doubt be a blast to attend this event. Will blog more once I had time to absorb the programme.

Tags: SAP, SAP SAPPHIRE 07, Axel Angeli, Craig Cmehil, Maggie Fox, James Governor, Dennis Howlett, Thomas Otter, Prashanth Rai, Sigurd Rinde, David Terrar, Charlie Wood, Dale Vile

Web 2.0, what is it? Wiki, what do you mean? Blog, heard about it! These were some of the comments I received when above terms were mentioned within Causeway. Now, let’s be fair. I expect to receive similar comments from most of UK and global organisations. Yet to mine and most other staff’s surprise, Causeway in fact had a Wiki and a blog, which were set-up several years ago by an ex-employee, well before I came to know these terms. Oops, looks like the last laugh is on me, then! Further dialogue unravelled another blogger (technical I must add). Who knows, there could be others!

I am a strong believer that when web 2.0 technologies are applied effectively within an organisation, it can help the organisation to achieve a competitive advantage. Among these technologies are blogging and wikis. Both can help improve communication and collaboration within the company as well as within a project team or strategic business unit.

Causeway is perhaps the key Value Added Reseller of Open Text solutions in the UK construction industry. As such, Open Text Live Link is extensively used within the company as its Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solution. Its a great tool that any organisation can benefit from. I am hooked! Due to my "creating a buzz" initiative, we now have the necessary modules installed within Live Link to allow company wide blogs and wikis. As such I created the first blog and wiki. No surprise there! The wiki is used to capture my thoughts and plans in addition to generating, editing and approving the content for the Tradex website which should go live this month, hopefully before the new release of Tradex. The blog need lot more thought (strategy and plan) and editors to make it a success. Will "Marketing" rise to the challenge? Or will "CEO" become the champion? Time will tell.

Do you use wikis and blogs within your organisations? What is the level of response, both from pros and cons perspective? How did you achieve momentum? Please do share your experience.

Tags: Causeway Technologies, Open Text, Tradex, LiveLink, blogging, wikis, ECM, Enterprise Content Management