The national project “Kohti kumppanuutta – lapsiperheiden rajattomat palvelut” (Towards partnership – services without boundaries for families with children) aims to improve the quality and availability of welfare services for families with children. Ixonos was chosen in the beginning of 2011 to implement the entity of online services in this project led by the city of Tampere and funded by the Ministry of Finance.

Ixonos has created an online service through which municipalities seamlessly and comprehensively provide social, health and education services to families with children. Service operations are uniform to enable development of easy-to-use online services for citizens as well as to create significant cost savings for service providers and time savings for municipal employees. 

The city of Tampere began to trial the service in November 2011, and now additional municipalities are embarking on the pilot. The city of Salo joined the pilot phase on 13 February 2012 and the city of Lahti intends to join during spring. “A growing number of users allows for increasingly active service development, which benefits all parties involved”, says Paula Vänninmaja, project manager, city of Tampere. There have been active discussions with the cities of Espoo and Oulu regarding the project. These cities alike recognise the need for the service and are showing an interest towards it.

The trials of the web service are expected to be completed during spring. After that, the service will be readied for production and developed into a concept enabling it to be easily and cost-efficiently provided to other municipalities. The service is intended to be developed further to cover new service areas as well as additional services for children and young people.

Ixonos has developed the online service entity together with Arcusys Ltd., utilising the principles of the enterprise architecture for the municipal sector. The technical realisation of the web service comprises the technical implementation of e-service processes as well as the integrations between the interface and the back-end systems. Intalio and JBoss products based on open source code have been used in creating the e-government architecture.

Ixonos provides deployment support to the municipalities joining the pilot. The web service is also available as a cloud service; this allows municipalities to put e-government services into operation in a rapid, standardised and cost-efficient manner based on the software-as-a-service model. “Municipalities can quickly deploy this uniform and reliable e-government package, cutting down on project investments, licence and application procurement and employee workload as well as further improving their customer service orientation”, notes Teppo Kuisma, head of Ixonos’ Online Solutions unit.

For more information, please contact:

• Teppo Kuisma, Vice President, Online Solutions, tel. +358 50 581 4075, teppo.kuisma@ixonos.com

• Riina Matilainen, Key Account Manager, tel. +358 40 736 3213, riina.matilainen@ixonos.com

Links:

• Ixonos’ website, or follow Ixonos on Twitter and YouTube

• City of Tampere website

• Arcusys Ltd.’s website

• “Kohti kumppanuutta – lapsiperheiden rajattomat palvelut” (Towards partnership – services without boundaries for families with children) project’s website in Finnish

The movers and shakers of the mobile industry will be gathering together for the Mobile World Congress on 27 February – 1 March 2012 in Barcelona, Spain. We will be there to introduce a fantastic portfolio of Ixonos products and services that hold wide market appeal for various customer segments around the world. On our exhibition booth 1E19 in Hall 1 in the Finnish Pavilion, we will be introducing the following product launches, trade previews and technology showcases:

Ixonos Smartphone Platform™

We have created a reference smartphone platform that defines a completely new product category: “Smart Quality”. Ixonos Smartphone Platform is designed and delivered in quality that only Ixonos can do.

Ixonos App Agency™

Our approach to delivering applications is to put the brand and the user first. Ixonos App Agency is an application hit factory, ready to deliver application experiences second to none.

Ixonos TV Compass™

With Ixonos TV Compass we introduce the viewing experience of the future, where social meets the world of visual entertainment – where you want it, when you want it.

Ixonos Mobile SW Services Suite™

Making software for a device that sells in millions takes more than the eye can see. In Ixonos Mobile SW Services Suite we offer our 15-year expertise through all the layers of device software as a complete package.

Ixonos Experience Store™

Most of the current application stores do not offer users what they crave. We created the Ixonos Experience Store as a premium app store that is the heart of the mobile experience for brands and companies demanding more.

Ixonos Super App™

Applications are the currency of the digital era and their value is defined by the opinion of the masses. Ixonos Super App takes the mobile evolution to new heights with a beautiful, customizable interface.

Ixonos 3D Engine™

Most user interfaces only capture a small amount of the richness of the visual universe, with its various dimensions and layers. Combining design and UI technology, we created the Ixonos 3D Engine to deliver natural, elegant and engaging 3D user experiences.

Ixonos IVI Connect™

Our ingenious software solution, compatible with MirrorLink™ technology as well as with Android and iOS, connects various mobile devices as well as cloud services with car head units.

Ixonos Elastic Cloud™

We are the first company in the Nordics, to offer a Red Hat certified open and secure application and integration platform for global online services and R&D.

Come to Ixonos’ booth 1E19 in Hall 1 in the Finnish Pavilion during the Mobile World Congress and see how mobile is transforming the world.

For more information, please contact:

• Antti Aumo, Vice President, Marketing, Ixonos tel. +358 40 5050 477, antti.aumo@ixonos.com

Links:

• Follow Ixonos on Twitter and YouTube
• Mobile World Congress event site, Ixonos’ booth 1E19, Hall 1, the Finnish Pavilion
• Ixonos Online Press kit at MWC2012

Ixonos has developed a groundbreaking solution to connect smartphone content and cloud services to in-car infotainment devices. Ixonos IVI Connect™ is the first connectivity solution that integrates both mobile devices and cloud services with automotive infotainment equipment and is compatible with Android and iOS devices as well as with all MirrorLink™ compliant devices.

The number of cars with Internet access is rising rapidly and some 70 million head units were manufactured in 2011 alone. Ixonos sees here an opportunity to help car OEMs, Tier-1 IVI system vendors and smartphone manufacturers by providing seamless connectivity that enables superior in-vehicle user experiences for consumers. With the productized connectivity solution provided by Ixonos, device manufacturers and application developers can create radically new and safe services and applications. Ixonos’ solution is standardized, verified and compatible with MirrorLink specifications, which significantly cuts down development costs and time.

“What is unique about Ixonos IVI Connect is that it connects cloud services and mobile devices to car head units and enables high-performance multi-device connectivity”, explains Timo Salminen, Director, Automotive & Home at Ixonos. For consumers, this translates into palpable benefits: apps, services and media content can be used across devices and throughout the car’s inbuilt electronic and audio systems. All content, such as HD video and apps, available on mobile devices or on a cloud server can be connected to the car’s head unit and even accessed from the rear-seat displays, taking into consideration driver safety regulations inherent in the MirrorLink standard.

Ixonos is a member of Car Connectivity Consortium and has the first MirrorLink Authorized Test Laboratory in Europe, making Ixonos the only company that provides a productized connectivity solution, in-car app development and certification in the same package. “Our position as Authorized Test Laboratory means that we can perform IOP and CTS testing close to our customers’ locations to help them accelerate the entry to market of their new products”, says Damien De Maya, Senior Manager, Customer Operations, Automotive & Home at Ixonos.

Ixonos’ unique service offering and technology expertise make it an ideal R&D partner for companies aiming to create their own in-vehicle services and connected devices. By combining innovative cloud solutions with high-end device designs providing top-of-the-line user experiences, we create for customer companies solutions that are custom designed for safe in-car use and compatible with the newest industry standards.

For more information, please contact:

• Timo Salminen, Director, Automotive & Home, tel. +358 40 745 6821, timo.salminen@ixonos.com
• Damien De Maya, Senior Manager, Customer Operations, Automotive & Home, tel. +358 400 287 692, damien.demaya@ixonos.com

 Links:

• Ixonos IVI Connect™, follow Ixonos on Twitter and YouTube
• Car Connectivity Consortium’s website

Ixonos, a creative mobile solutions company and Finnish cloud solution provider, has made a deal with Norwegian web content management (WCM) and customer experience management (CXM) provider eZ Systems to build a flexible and reliable cloud solution. The Ixonos-enabled eZ Publish Cloud helps turn eZ’s award-winning open source web content management platform eZ Publish into a customised cloud edition.

Ixonos launched an open and secure enterprise cloud solution called Ixonos Elastic Cloud™ in May 2011. It is the first Red Hat certified cloud in the Nordic countries, which means it is particularly well suited for the numerous enterprise customers already running their applications in Red Hat Linux environments. “At Ixonos, we are focused on providing continuous innovation in the development of our cloud resources, which are based in our own state-of-the-art data centres”, says Janne Luntta, head of Cloud & Hosting Services at Ixonos.

Forming the basis of eZ Publish Cloud, Ixonos Elastic Cloud allows eZ customers to benefit from guaranteed platform stability as well as a high degree of service and support. Ixonos offers seamless migration from on-premise data centres to the cloud as well as service levels and cloud resources that can be easily adjusted to customer needs. By pre-packaging five different levels of cloud services, eZ allows its Publish Cloud customers to enjoy hassle-free service instead of each of them having to configure resource capacity and hosting separately, tasks which are often time-consuming and arduous. 

eZ customers also get a chance to enjoy various customisable cloud products Ixonos has developed in-house: the white-label boutique app-store platform Ixonos Experience Store™ and the City Online™ municipal e-government services will be made available also via the eZ Market. “The new deal with eZ Systems, a world-leading provider of open source content management solutions, means we can now offer our own cloud customers a hefty, globally capable web content management platform developed by the number one open source WCM provider,” says Teppo Kuisma, head of Online Solutions at Ixonos. “I trust this will attract Internet service vendors and various other companies who wish to build their business models in the cloud,” he adds.

Gabriele Viebach, Group CEO at eZ Systems, comments on the collaboration with Ixonos: “We are glad to have gained as service-oriented a partner as Ixonos. They have many years of experience in the areas of cloud and hosting services and software development. Together, we are able to offer our customers a high degree of service and support.”

Ixonos believes that building business on top of the cloud is a great opportunity for companies operating in accordance with open source business models as well as for any customer developing new services for global or domestic markets with tight time-to-market demands. Ixonos offers to manage troublesome hosting issues flexibly, reliably and cost-efficiently, enabling customer companies to concentrate on running their core business, developing their services and serving their own customers better.

For more information, please contact:

• Teppo Kuisma, head of Online Solutions, Ixonos, tel. +358 50 581 4075, teppo.kuisma@ixonos.com
• Janne Luntta, head of Cloud & Hosting Services, Ixonos, tel. +358 40 591 3517, janne.luntta@ixonos.com

Links:

• Ixonos Elastic Cloud, follow Ixonos on Twitter and YouTube
• eZ Systems’ website
• Red Hat’s website 

The must-attend annual gathering of the mobile industry is approaching. The Mobile World Congress will be held on 27 February – 1 March 2012 in Barcelona, Spain.

Ixonos will be there to introduce its new fantastic portfolio of products and services that have market potential in various customer segments around the world. We are launching many new products during Mobile World Congress.

Our exhibition booth 1E19 is located in Hall 1 in the Finnish Pavilion, where we offer you a chance to be one of the firsts to see our new high-end smartphone platform that enables distinctive user experiences; our high-performance digital content delivery system that fully engages your brand community; our comprehensive solution for multiplatform app development that supports your mobile business strategy; as well as a complete range of platform-independent software services. We will also introduce our patented next-generation app concept that combines multiple information sources and social media channels as well as our synchronized social entertainment platform.

Mobile World Congress 2012 celebrates the current state of mobile and offers a glimpse into where mobile has the potential to go next. Come have a look at how mobile is transforming the world.

For further information, please contact:

Antti Aumo, Vice President, Marketing, tel. +358 40 5050 477, antti.aumo@ixonos.com

Links:

• Mobile World Congress event site, Ixonos’ booth 1E19, Hall 1, the Finnish Pavilion
• Ixonos Online Press kit at MWC2012

Ixonos has concepted, designed and developed a LazyTown game app called AirShip Challenge, which is available in both Windows Phone Marketplace and Nokia Store. Created in support of Nokia’s Windows phones, such as the new Nokia Lumia, AirShip Challenge is based on the Windows Phone Mango operating system. A Symbian 3 version of the app will follow shortly.

Ixonos launched an App Agency service portfolio in June 2011 in order to offer its customers a comprehensive solution covering all aspects related to app development. The holistic concept has received an enthusiastic reception among Ixonos’ existing clients and attracted numerous new companies looking for an effortless entry in to the apps business. The AirShip Challenge, fully concepted and created in-house at Ixonos, is proof of the superb quality and efficiency provided by Ixonos App Agency.

Well known for developing mobile software for communications and collaboration purposes laced with fantastic user experience, Ixonos now shows stunning evidence of its capability in developing engaging gaming experiences as well. The UX design work for the app has been carried out in Ixonos’ UK Design Studio, set up in the summer 2011. The head of the studio, Creative Director Julian Harris, says: “With AirShip Challenge we created an engaging game idea that would appeal to the target audience and be consistent with LazyTown’s brand. After constructing the game mechanic, experience design and technical implementation, we were delighted to discover that the game tested very well with the target audience.”

True to LazyTown’s gaming philosophy, AirShip Challenge promotes a healthy and active lifestyle for kids of all ages. In the game, the player navigates the LazyTown hero’s AirShip through the clouds and collects points by capturing falling SportsCandy. “We’re very happy to be supporting LazyTown’s mission to educate kids to get active and make healthy lifestyle choices, as this aligns well with Ixonos corporate values, namely learning and responsibility”, says Antti Aumo, head of Marketing from Ixonos.

>> Download the game for Microsoft WindowsPhone mobile from the Windows Phone Maketplace:  http://bit.ly/z7gKS9 >>

For more information, please contact:

Julian A D Harris, Creative Director, UK Design Studio, tel. +44 7843 725 809, julian.harris@ixonos.com

Antti Aumo, Vice President, Global Marketing, tel. +358 40 505 0477, antti.aumo@ixonos.com

Nigel Alexander, Director, Sales & Business Development, +44 7831 485 081, nigel.alexander@ixonos.com

Roope Suomalainen, Director, Experience, tel. +44 77 178 23 707, roope.suomalainen@ixonos.com

• Lazy Town press release

Ixonos APAC Design Studio in Beijing is celebrating its grand opening on Monday, 19 December 2011, fully set to offer a wide range of services from user research, UX strategy and concept design to prototyping.

The APAC Design Studio has been designed top-to-bottom with the aim of building a work environment that facilitates creative team-working and unleashes the inventiveness of the team. Recruitment of a top team of UX experts has been on-going throughout the autumn. There are still a few positions to be filled, check them out at our UX career listings page. >>

The APAC Design Studio is headed by Creative Director Vijay A Selvaraj and compliments the design studios already in place in Helsinki, Finland, London, UK and Kosice, Slovakia.

Read more about Ixonos’ user experience services. >>

For more information, please contact:

• Vijay A Selvaraj, Creative Director, APAC Design Studio, tel. +86 138 1108 3805, vijay.selvaraj@ixonos.com
• Sami Paihonen, Vice President, UEDC, tel. +358 50 502 1111, sami.paihonen@ixonos.com

Ixonos has created an app store platform on which businesses can base their mobile strategy. The Ixonos Experience Store™ is a digital marketing and distribution channel that enables companies to improve brand awareness, build customer loyalty and monetise mobile apps.

Ixonos has been a leader in the design and development of mobile services for more than a decade. “We now offer a turnkey solution for a boutique app store that is always customised to the customer’s brand and strategy”, says Roope Suomalainen, head of the Experience business area at Ixonos. The Ixonos Experience Store is cloud-based, which provides for easy, cost-efficient maintenance and allows the store to adapt to sudden global expansion of the company’s operations. The platform is also suitable for distribution of other types of digital content such as video, music, e-books and online magazines.

Building their own boutique app store on top of the Ixonos Experience Store offers the greatest benefits to companies with young customers who are also the most eager to adopt new technology and social media services. “Specifically consumer brands, media powerhouses, game studios and record labels are among the companies most interested in the brand visibility an interactive app store enables in social media”, notes Antti Aumo, Vice President, Global Marketing.

Unlike the largest app stores, a company’s own boutique app store does not have to be confined to any particular operating system. Apps for all mobile and tablet devices can instead be provided through the same channel. In addition, instead of having consumers wade through a myriad of apps, user profiles can be utilised to show each customer the few hundred apps he or she is likely to find the most interesting. “Not all apps offered in a boutique app store need to be built around the company’s own brand. The company can also provide to other businesses supporting its brand a ready-made distribution channel for apps and advertising”, Mr Suomalainen explains.

A boutique app store built around a strong brand allows customer relationships to be strengthened, for instance by using individual user information to target marketing activities. The store also enables a diverse brand experience: as an example, deep Facebook integration allows consumers to share their experiences and recommend apps to others.

In the last few years, and particularly for the younger generation, mobile apps have become a natural way to communicate, enjoy entertainment and obtain services. According to research institute Gartner, the combined turnover of app stores was some USD 3.9 billion in 2010 and it is generally estimated to grow past USD 15 billion in 2012. Ixonos anticipates the number of app stores to double from the current less than 200 to over 400 by the summer of 2012, particularly as consumer brands invest in increasing their customer loyalty. Accordingly, mobile apps constitute a significant market in which more and more companies in every industry want to participate.

For more information, please contact:

Ixonos:
• Roope Suomalainen, Director, Experience, tel. +358 50 564 5988, roope.suomalainen@ixonos.com
• Antti Aumo, Vice President, Global Marketing, tel. +358 40 505 0477, antti.aumo@ixonos.com

Links:
• Twitter
• YouTube

A leap in the development of sophisticated in-vehicle connectivity solutions

Ixonos’ test laboratory has fulfilled the requirements defined by the Car Connectivity Consortium (CCC) and is conditionally approved as a CCC Authorized Test Laboratory. Ixonos can help car and electronics manufacturers to accelerate the entry to market of their new MirrorLink-enabled products by assuring that they fulfil the strict criteria set by the CCC. For manufacturers interested in utilizing the momentum of the new MirrorLink technology, Ixonos functions as an enabler, delivering significant reductions in time to market and R&D costs. To consumers, MirrorLink conformance guarantees seamless compatibility of their chosen phone and car model with one another.

Ixonos’ experts have been working with MirrorLink™ technology for the past 2 years already, developing solutions for seamless connectivity between smart phones and in-vehicle infotainment systems. A member of the Car Connectivity Consortium since last June, Ixonos has become an integral contributor to the development of sophisticated in-vehicle connectivity solutions. “Being heavily involved in the consortium and in MirrorLink development as well as having state-of-the-art test laboratory facilities and competence for thorough SW, HW and mechanics testing means the CCC certification was a logical step for us,” says Damien De Maya, Manager, Customer Operations, Automotive & Home,
from Ixonos.

Ixonos’ role as a MirrorLink Authorized Test Laboratory (ATL) means it can officially test and certify that car and phone manufacturers’ products meet the requirements defined by the CCC. The clientele for MirrorLink conformance and IOP testing comprises the other Car Connectivity Consortium members, which include leading vehicle manufacturers as well as smartphone and consumer-electronics makers.

Currently, only two laboratories in the world have MirrorLink ATL status, and of those two, Ixonos is the only one offering software development services for smart phones and head units. At the moment, Ixonos is also the only MirrorLink test laboratory in Europe, while also working towards getting global accreditation for a network of test laboratories by joining forces with testing and type approval partner Nemko.

Ixonos has also utilized its vast experience with the MirrorLink technology to create a full range of MirrorLink-related products ready to deliver to customers interested in gaining faster market access with fully developed and compliant high-quality products. “Our MirrorLink product offering includes MirrorLink server & client software, software development and verification services, and all-encompassing user experience design. Device manufacturers across the world and across industries are showing increasing interest towards our MirrorLink offering and the first MirrorLink-certified customer products will be shipping early next year,” reveals Antti Aumo, head of Global Marketing at Ixonos.

Ixonos is also an optimal development partner for companies interested in creating their own in-vehicle services and connected devices from scratch, as Ixonos’ unique offering combines user experience design with top-of the-line online solutions and full device creation. “We can design and implement for our customers connected devices and services specifically designed for in-car use and guarantee that these are fully compatible with the new industry standards”, Antti points out.

For more information, please contact:

- Damien De Maya, Manager, Customer Operations, Automotive & Home, tel. +358 400 287 692,
damien.demaya@ixonos.com
- Antti Aumo, Vice President, Global Marketing, tel. +358 40 505 0477, antti.aumo@ixonos.com
- Timo Salminen, Director, Automotive & Home, tel. +358 40 745 6821, timo.salminen@ixonos.com

Links:
- Follow Ixonos on Twitter and YouTube
- Car Connectivity Consortium’s website

The open-source ecosystem for smart mobile devices is getting new wind in its sails as LiMo Foundation and Linux Foundation announced the development of a new, open, device-independent software platform for the entire industry. The development of the new mobile Linux platform will be headed by the Linux Foundation, of which Ixonos is a member.

This open-source joint venture has already gathered a large number of supporters. Ixonos and other Nordic systems integrators EB, Nomovok, Cybercom and TDi have also publicly voiced their support for the Tizen initiative. The venture will offer significant new business opportunities for software companies that operate on the global market and have experience in MeeGo development projects.

”We strongly believe that there is a resounding need for a globally uniform open software platform. Tizen offers the industry and its players interesting opportunities as Internet-enabled devices continue to proliferate and as the home-electronics, automotive and telecommunications industries converge”, notes Kari Happonen, President and CEO of Ixonos.

The openness concept that drives the initiative creates faith in the mobile industry’s will to work together for a common goal, not just compete fiercely. The development of a unified platform brings together different players such as hardware manufacturers and telecommunications companies. Faster development of the platform will bring major benefits to all parties involved. Hardware manufacturers will be able to take advantage of new flexibility as they innovate devices. At the same time, development costs and times will be substantially reduced. The joint application store and the uniform, standards-based programming language will provide developers and service providers with a ready-for-use channel to consumers. End users will enjoy advanced functionality in devices and services as well as a wide selection of applications for various devices and, above all, the uniform user experience these features enable.

Ixonos has strong expertise in mobile Linux platforms. ”We have worked with mobile Linux since 2006: hundreds of our engineers have participated in the dozens of projects we have carried out together with several other companies. We are a Linux Foundation member and we intend to assume a very active role as Tizen developers and as enablers of a new level of openness”, says Antti Aumo, Vice President, Global Marketing.

Ixonos provides its customers with solutions for the design and development of connected device and multichannel online services and mobile applications, based on various operating systems, including mobile Linux. These services are connected by our ambition to provide end users with superior mobile user experiences. When designing solutions and services that take advantage of wireless technology, Ixonos works with all major software platforms as well as on a platform-independent basis. However, our development work is not based on technology but on innovating new solutions and creating new, positive user experiences.

For more information, please contact:

Ixonos:
• Kari Happonen, President and CEO, tel. +358 400 700 761, kari.happonen@ixonos.com
• Antti Aumo, Vice President, Global Marketing, tel. +358 40 505 0477, antti.aumo@ixonos.com

Links:
• Ixonos on Twitter: http://twitter.com/IxonosTweets
• Ixonos on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/IxonosOnline
• Linux Foundation
• Tizen

Ixonos arranges a press conference on Thursday 29 September at 11.30 am in Helsinki:
Mobile Linux speeds up industrial convergence – Ixonos supports Open Source Tizen initiative
Ixonos CEO Kari Happonen and business unit representatives explains their views on the opportunities mobile Linux offers as wireless technology converges home electronics, automotive and telecom industries. Place to be: Bank, Unioninkatu 20, Helsinki, Meeting Point cabinet, 2nd floor.

Further information:
Sirje Ahvenlampi, Communications Manager, tel. +358 50 557 3822, sirje.ahvenlampi@ixonos.com