Interview: Gísli Kristjánsson, COO Of Greenqloud
We recently talked about Greenqloud, a cloud storage startup with a focus on IaaS (Infrastructure as a Cloud) services. We took the opportunity to get in touch with Gísli Kristjánsson, COO Greenqloud to get a better insight about the startup and understand what makes them unique. Gísli rightfully thought that it is essential to clarify the understanding of Cloud Computing, and before we post the short Q/A, we would love to share the definition of Cloud Computing as defined by the National Institute of Standards and Technology:
Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.
Skyhood Launches Rekrysoft, We Have Beta Beta Access For You
Ever had to hire someone and as a technologist you go in search of tools that could help you? Skyhood is now offering Rekrysoft (all in Finnish at the moment, unfortunately), a SaaS-based application to help companies better handle the recruiting process. The application emphasizes ease of use, and in the process puts focus on decision making and communication. Towards the bottom of this article you can find out how you can sign-up for the service.
HeiaHeia Launches Corporate Version
HeiaHeia, the Finnish originated service to help those exercising keep track of their developement, has announced the launch of their corporate white label service. The corporate version leverages features from the current service, but will be sold to clients through a SaaS-model. The launch of the corporate version will have no effect on the consumer service and it will stay free in the future as well, according to a blog post by HeiaHeia.
Pipedrive Gets More Native With Google Chrome
Remember our review about Pipedrive, the Estonian startup? The Sales tool announced making the Pipedrive application more native with the Google Chrome browser, giving Chrome users a chance to make use of Pipedrive application on their default browser.
Queue-it: Ensuring Your Site Is Crashless
Software as a Service has quite gripped the way we find solutions for numerous problems within our business and ventures. With the advent of Cloud Computing the question of deploying software outside the infrastructure of one’s own company has been resolved at large and many are leveraging services based on the cloud to their advantage. One such is Queue-it, a startup based in Denmark that utilizes the concept of SaaS to help prevent your website from crashing.
Web Design Rebel Hammerkit Launches Closed Beta
Finnish web design solution provider Hammerkit has launched a closed beta of the new version of its cloud-based web design tool with revamped UI and features. The company's tool allows web designers to implement even complex websites on their own, without the need for help from programmers. Traditionally web designers have built mock-ups and wireframes, and then transferred these over to programmers to implement and weave in database connections etc. dynamic functionality. Hammerkit aims to revolutionize this old school fashion, allowing creativity without learning complex programming techniques - thus the company's tagline "a tool for the web punk generation."
Pingdom Thrives With Strict Strategic Focus
Pingdom is a service measuring and tracking the uptime, downtime, and performance of websites, covering the uptime monitoring needs of 90% of the companies in the world. The Sweden based firm has been very efficient in concentrating on this narrow segment, and has been growing strongly as a result. The firm's mission is fully focused on providing the best uptime monitoring service available. Pingdom was founded in 2005 by Sam Nurmi, who also founded and later sold Sweden’s biggest web hosting company, Loopia.
LumoFlow Pushes For Social Collaboration
I bumped into LumoFlow some time ago already, but only recently did I get more familiar with it. The service is a nice social collaboration site where you have the basic tools available for working in a collaborative manner. LumoFlow is being developed by Lumo Research, a company that launched the product in Slush 2008. While the product launch was initially a little over a year ago, the service has come along nicely.
The company was founded by Kristian Tanninen and Sami Linnanvuo. Bart Schrooten has also joined their ranks and is responsible for marketing and business development. Kristian Tanninen has a history of developing large scale IT-projects for powerhouses such as Logica, whereas Sami Linnanvuo and Bart Schrooten have their backgrounds in the company Leiki.
23 Video Disrupting The Online Video Business
I was recently given a demo of 23 Video, a Danish online service offering a plug and play web-tv platform to set up ones own web-tv channel.
The first thought that crossed my mind during the demo was the feeling of sligth anxiety that occurs when checking out the roaming costs on the phone bill. If not chockingly high, they're usually more than expected. Even though you had checked out the costs in beforehand and were being sensible using your phone abroad.
How come? Because it's the exact same feeling of uncertainty and confusion one often faces when dealing with streaming costs. It already starts with the business offer letter, usually three pages long with no mention of the actual final cost. And that after a meeting with a sales person who's supposed to know your needs and demands by then. Need a video player, too? Call some more people.
23 Video is determined to kill that mumbo jumbo and all talk about difficulties surrounding online streaming and setting up ones own web-tv channel.
Erply Only Nordic And Baltic Company In Seedcamp
Erply, an Estonian web startup, is the only company to make it to Seedcamp from the Nordics and Baltics. But what a great idea that Erply has, despite being a tiny company with only 4 employees. The company is actually working to create a single solution for small retailers and service companies to handle all their daily operations. Daily operations include everything from handling your inventory, having a digital cash register, billing and accounting software.
Hoist Lets You Create Your Own Collaboration Tool
Hoist is one of the many Danish startups we had the pleasure of pitching us at the ArcticEvening Copenhagen last week.
Hoist is an on demand project collaboration tool joining the long list of business productivity services such as Basecamp. It was launched in private beta at Reboot conference held last week, where I fortunately managed to get a short demo. There's not too much information found on the site so the best way to find out more is indeed to book a demo meeting, get lucky requesting a test account, or simply wait them to go public later this fall.
More Accurate Time Tracking With Toggl.com
Toggl.com is an online time tracking tool created by an Estonian software development service firm Apprise. The service popped up on our screen via ArcticIndex registration.
The UI of Toggl is clear, and pleasant and fast to navigate. To start recording time for a new task is dead simple, just type in a client and a task name, and toggle the icon to start tracking. Tasks can be set to be billable. Different projects and clients can also be set up to organize the work. In addition to web site and iGoogle widgets, there is also a desktop client available, with just recently launched offline support. Reports are available with a variety of different filters.
Severa Eases Management's Pains With New Version
Severa is a Finnish "startup" that focuses on creating one SaaS-solution to managing company's billing, project management and sales. They have just released a new version of the service - Severa3. I have to admit, looking at their website and statistics - they are doing very well. Severa was founded in 2004 and has grown a staggering 1304% over the last four years.
According to Inoa, their 2007 revenue was around 790k euros with a 121k operating profit. Other stats on their site are also pretty impressive - they help manage 130 000 projects, around 42 000 invoices and 10 million hours of work. Their business model is also relatively inexpensive - 30 euros per user per month and the first person to sign up gets the service for free. I have to disclose, that this is not a paid blog post by Severa, but I seldom am this fascinated by management tools!
