We are currently in IFA in Berlin – touted as the “Leading Business Event for Consumer Electronics and Home Appliance’s”. This is a huge exhibition where you can see everything from cutting-edge kitchen electronics to digital media. For us, it has been great to note we have created an impact building on the excellent foundation of our open source work. Seems that demand for file system compatibility is on the rise, and who are we to say no to that challenge…
It has been an interesting week. Our Microsoft PR went through the media pretty much as expected. Some coverage:
Brief answers to frequently asked questions so far:
Spent this morning at Microsoft’s BizSpark event in Espoo.
It was a three hour session with a number of short talks and enthusiasm to get Microsoft partners to work and cooperate together. Keynote speaker was Petri I Salonen who runs IAMCP and TELLUS International in the US. A well motivated talk from a seasoned software entrepreneur.
I also explained Tuxera to Artur Surov from Technolopolis Ventures and I am going to pitch Tuxera again 10.9.2009 in their MoneyTalks event.
Overall it was a surprisingly lively morning event and also productive for us. It was nice to get direct feedback on who we are and what we do at Tuxera. I am confident we can find opportunities with other partners in the Microsoft ecosystem in the near future.
At Microsoft. From left: Anton Altaparmakov, Mikko Välimäki, and Szabolcs Szakacsits.
“I can’t believe we are here!”, Szabolcs remarked as soon as we had driven from the Seattle airport to Redmond and signed in to our mighty American-size hotel rooms. It was indeed a trip with a lot of preparation. Our talks with Microsoft had started almost a year ago when the company was founded. I had changed my role from an outside counsel to a company man sometime in March. First and foremost to get this deal done.
We came to Redmond to have an agreement, and in the end that is what we got. Three days of intensive meetings and talking — it was very impressive to see a big company work very effectively when they finally wanted to go for it while we were there.
After we had signed, someone from Microsoft asked: “Have we ever done a deal so quickly?” “I don’t think so,” was the answer.
A quick signature for a man, but a giant leap for the company.