Ixonos participates in the international Symbian Exchange & Exposition 2009 networking event, which will be held in London in late October.

Ixonos’ experts will be holding a presentation about the utilization of open source software in business with the title “OSS Business Models throughout the Mobile Value Chain”.

At on our stand, 202, we will be showing our leading Symbian competence and proven ability to combine the varied know-how of our different site locations to the benefit of our clients. We will also be introducing our new, next-generation smartphone design unit, which enables mechanical engineering and electronics design in addition to software development. In the new unit, we will develop smartphones for international device manufacturers and operators based on new, powerful chipsets from the world’s leading technology suppliers and on the Android and Symbian operating systems.

For more information, please contact:
Director, International Sales, Seppo Sneck, tel. +44 754 532 2377, seppo.sneck/at/ixonos.com

Learn more about the event at SEE website.

Maemo Summit is held in Amsterdam on 9–11 October 2009. The summit is an annual event aimed at everyone working with Maemo from developers to business experts.  Group Manager Mikko Levonmaa from Ixonos has been invited to attend the event as a speaker. His topic is Feedservice and feedservice plug-ins development in Maemo 5.

For more information, please contact:
Director, Mobile Terminals & Software, Tomi Kyllönen, tel. +358 40 848 6116, tomi.kyllonen/at/ixonos.com

Visit the Maemo wiki for more information.

ITU Telecom World 2009 will be held in Geneve, Switzerland, on 5–9 October 2009. WORLD 2009 incorporates thematic elements to highlight the reach and role of telecommunications and ICT in areas of societal change. With its focus on development opportunities, the event brings together corporate social responsibility and displays cases of best practices.

Participating in the event are Ixonos CEO Kari Happonen and Director, Partnerships and Innovation, Panu Kause. Panu Kause has been invited as a panelist to take part in a debate about Cloud Computing, part of the Forum’s Business Models theme.

For more information, please contact:
Director, Partnerships and Innovation, Panu Kause, tel. +358 40 838 4603, panu.kause/at/ixonos.com

Visit ITU website for more information.

 Ixonos Plc expands the company’s smartphone R&D services and establishes a new next-generation smartphone design unit in connection with Ixonos’ site in Jyväskylä. 

As a partner to leading device manufacturers, Ixonos has grown into one of the world’s largest suppliers of smartphone software. In addition to software development, the new design unit will provide for mechanical engineering and electronics design. 

In the new unit, Ixonos will develop smartphones for international device manufacturers and operators based on new, powerful chipsets from the world’s leading technology suppliers and on the Android and Symbian operating systems. 

“The smartphone market is currently in a highly transitional period. New chipsets, open operating systems and user-friendlier user interfaces as well as the productization of software all change the competitive situation between device manufacturers and boosts the demand for new R&D services”, says Kari Happonen, President and CEO of Ixonos. 

The forming of a unit that enables mechanical engineering and electronics design, supports our ambition to develop smartphones with an unprecedented level of innovativeness both for our current customers and for an entirely new international clientele”, Mr Happonen continues. “In the new unit, we will be able to significantly speed up device R&D as well as to offer device-manufacturers and operators tailored solutions.”  

Next generation smartphones, as well as the Internet services they will be used for, are estimated to become a significant factor as device manufacturers and telecommunications operators compete for their share of the market. “We have significant experience in smartphone functionality, in the development of mobile Internet services, and in uniting the two into a smooth user experience.

The new unit will be in a key position as we create devices that inspire consumers with both practical use and pleasure as they take advantage of the ever-increasing supply of services on the wireless Internet”, Mr Happonen says. 

In connection with establishing the new unit, Ixonos purchases the equipment of Nokia Corporation’s mobile phone R&D laboratory in Jyväskylä. The equipment Ixonos acquires with this deal includes mechanical engineering hardware; an RF and antenna measurement laboratory; facilities for the measurement of audio, cameras and displays; as well as devices and robot units for the testing of mobile devices. 

Ixonos estimates that it will hire 20 specialists in mechanical engineering, electronics design, and R&D for its new unit in Jyväskylä by the end of 2009. The company plans to increase the unit’s specialist staff to several dozen — depending on the market situation— during 2010.  

­For more information, please contact:
Ixonos Plc, Kari Happonen, CEO, mobile +358 400 700 761, kari.happonen/at/ixonos.com
Ixonos Plc, Kari Liuska, Senior Vice President, mobile +358 40 756 0285, kari.liuska/at/ixonos.com

Ixonos has won the competitive bidding for the delivery of a service architecture to the City of Tampere. The city is moving its information systems over to a service-oriented architecture (SOA) requiring an SOA service platform.

The new, open-source-based platform will be used to control and manage the municipal e-government services used by the citizens of Tampere. The platform also supports the development of an environment, as well as process-centric operations, based on an enterprise SOA.

“Selecting and using an open-source-based solution is a strategically important decision with which Tampere guarantees flexible and cost-effective availability of the web services used by the city’s inhabitants. Tampere is in many ways one of the leading SOA trendsetters and architects in the Finnish municipal sector”, says Teppo Kuisma, Chief Project Officer at Ixonos.

Among others, the “Kohti kumppanuutta” project, which develops juvenile welfare services, will use the new platform to make its services available online in 2010. The supplier collaboration environment will be eclectic and the service-oriented architecture will challenge industry players into increasingly open co-operation.

“We are conceptually duplicating what we have built during the past 18 months in the development project for the e-government portal for the City of Oulu: the Oulu citizens’ portal”, Teppo Kuisma continues. “From our viewpoint, Tampere’s commitment to open standards as well as to the KuntaIT architecture work is a splendid thing. We want to continue stepping up this process by working with cities and industry pioneers”.

“Ixonos’ references from and its experience with the implementation of the Oulu citizens’ portal strongly motivated us to choose Ixonos. Another reason was the flexibility of the service platform”, notes Teppo Sulonen, the CIO of the City of Tampere. The decision was also influenced by the projected implementation costs for the solution; this estimate was approximately a fifth of the costs for the nearest closed-source solution offered.

The project comprises the implementation of the SOA platform as well as the related start-up project. Ixonos will supply the City of Tampere with an SOA centre of expertise; this delivery will include centre establishment and start-up as well as participation in the centre’s operation. For the duration of the cooperation, Ixonos will also provide Tampere with appropriate application support.

The technology of Tampere’s service platform is based on Intalio’s process server and Designer products, which lead the market in open-source solutions for critical operating environments. Intalio is an Ixonos Gold Level partner. As for the service bus solution, Ixonos has chosen Red Hat’s JBoss SOA platform. “The features of Intalio’s and JBoss’s products have proved very suitable for implementing the KuntaIT e-government architecture. Our personnel’s knowledge and experience related to these products help us offer a very competitive solution”, Teppo Kuisma adds.

For additional information, please contact:
Ixonos Oyj, Teppo Kuisma, Chief Project Officer, tel. +358 50 581 4075, teppo.kuisma/at/ixonos.com
City of Tampere, Teppo Sulonen, CIO, tel. +358 400 237 440, teppo.sulonen/at/tampere.fi

Ixonos participates in the Finnish Government’s 6th ICT day on 22 September, 2009. The event, held at the Helsinki Fair Centre, is organized in co-operation with a selected group of suppliers. The topics focus on the current ICT megatrends and their influence on the government sector.

Ixonos is currently implementing a digital archive service called VALDA for the Finnish Government’s officials. The State IT Service Centre (i.e. Valtion IT-palvelukeskus, VIP) will offer VALDA for purchase to all central-government agencies and ministries. Ixonos is implementing the main components; case management, document management, and subject management. The implementation project utilizes agile methods such Scrum and TDD in a virtualized multi-supplier surrounding.

VALDA service is based on the FileNet Business Process Framework product, which is connected to the internal and external systems of the offices via the VIP integration platform. Additionally, VALDA will include e-government services and it will be linked to the common user administration or IDM (Identity Management) and PKI (Public Infrastructure) services. Special attention is paid to ensure the flexible and controlled handling of a massive amount of information with very high information security standards. The system is implemented during 2009 and 2010. The first services will be in production by the turn of the year.

More information:
Timo Aittoniemi, Director, Business Solutions, mobile +358 40 566 7060, timo.aittoniemi/at/ixonos.com