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

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

The morning event offers a compact, informative package of views to the development of online business as well as a review of new solution models to using cloud services more diversely. 

From Ixonos, Business Development Director Jari Kekkonen will be speaking about utilizing the cloud environment in service development. The topic is approached as a business case, and Jari is joined on stage by Mikko Matilainen, director of infrastructure services from Fonecta Oy.

The other speakers at the event are Marko Turpeinen, Director, EIT ICT Labs Helsinki; Bertrand Maugain, VP Business Development, eZ Systems; Bernard Franckel, Red Hat; and Antti Oksanen, editor-in-chief, Tietoviikko.

For more information, please contact:
Jari Kekkonen, Business Development Director, tel. +358 50 342 1521, jari.kekkonen@ixonos.com

Additional details and a registration form are available, in Finnish, at the organiser’s web page.>>

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

For more information about the event in Finnish, visit the organizer’s homepage. >>

Ixonos representatives at the event are:

• Roope Suomalainen, Director, Experience, mobile +358 50 5645 988, roope.suomalainen@ixonos.com
• Esa Nettamo, Creative Director and Studio Lead, mobile +358 40 543 1195, esa.nettamo@ixonos.com
• Kimmo Kujala, Director, Business Development, mobile +358 50 356 4211, kimmo.kujala@ixonos.com
• Riz Haque, Director, Key Customer Accounts, mobile +358 40 412 9965, riz.haque@ixonos.com

For more information about the event, visit the event web site.>>

Read more about the Ixonos and eZ collaboration in the press release from 7 February 2012. >>  

Ixonos’ representatives at the conference:

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

Janne Sirén, Director, Key Accounts, tel. +358 400 598 801, janne.siren@ixonos.com

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 

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

Once you know why you want to create the app, and you have the concept ready, you should consider the possible business models. Will the app be free, i.e. subsidised by other business or ad revenue? Should there be a freemium model, a subscription, perhaps a paid app or something else? The next topic to consider is the target segment: who are the customers, why would they choose you and what is the competition? Understanding and segmenting the customer base is also extremely important, as different people use different devices. This is where things often go wrong; the first apps may be created for iOS and Android even though customers might be using simple Java-enabled phones. Going directly to smart TVs and gaming consoles might also make sense. Even the smartphone game can be complex: for example, Symbian and BlackBerry combined have almost 70% of the market share in the Middle East.

Getting the business case, concept and customer segmentation right are the time consuming parts. When the groundwork has been done well, technical implementation is more straightforward. The key question there is whether to go native for each platform or utilize cross-platform technologies like HTML5 to reach a wider user base and a larger variety of devices. Unfortunately, there are still some challenges with cross-platform technology compatibility and it may not always live up to the promise. Selecting a right partner is important to make sure that your app’s usability and performance are on the right level and can be maintained to support future devices and functionality. You also need to consider whether to have the app use your existing web infrastructure or perhaps run it on a cloud.

The next hurdle to tackle is the publishing. First of all, managing global deployment with localization across multiple versions and platforms is a huge challenge. In addition, Apple’s App Store and the Android Market both have more than 500,000 apps and Nokia Store has more than 100,000 apps. How do you make your app visible to users and get downloads, where and when should you run your marketing and how do you ensure that your app is preferred to those of your competitors? Without downloads, there is no business case. Unless you have a unique idea and content that no one else can access, someone else might build a better app using your content and find a way to monetize it. It is amazing that the most popular Twitter and Facebook apps are not built by those companies themselves. Usability is really king in the digital world and even more in mobile, where the screen size is limited.

In addition to selecting the key smartphone and other platforms, it is a good idea to keep tablet users in mind as well. What works on a smartphone most likely does not work well on a tablet, and people tend to use the two in different situations and environments. Cars are also connected, through various technologies such as MirrorLink. Most TVs sold are Internet enabled, but you can also get your apps and services on the big home screen with a game console. The real opportunity lies in integrating all these different devices and ensuring a larger presence in your customers’ everyday life.

Mobile business opportunities are emerging and most of the technology is already in place. Now is the time to create the concept that will change consumer behavior.

For more information, please contact:
Roope Suomalainen, Director, Experience, tel. +358 50 564 5988, roope.suomalainen@ixonos.com

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