More projects starting up in the Agder region

Together with the VRI project more pre-projects related to wireless technology are in the startup phase. The topics covered in the projects are Condition Based Maintainence (CBM) using sensor networks, using medtech equipment/sensors with wlan infrastructures in hospitals and mesh networking in a hybrid radio/optical network. More information will be published as the projects evolve. All three projects involves companies from Agder and researchers from University of Agder.

Industrial Wireless Security Workshop in Kristiansand

During the NIK/NISK conference in Kristiansand in november we had a workshop on industrial wireless security. The program was as follows:

• Wlan SIM kort (Poul Heegaard, Telenor R&I)
  
• Sikker Autentisering, NFC og BankID (Petter Taugbøl, enCap)
  
• Common Evalualtion Criteria (Jens Helge Rypestøl, Applica Consulting)
  
• [hiddn] Opportunities (Adnan Visic, High Density Devices)
  
• Future SIM mulighetsstudie (Asle Pedersen, Trådløs Framtid

Although, unfortunately, we had rather few participants (approx. 10), those who were present expressed that it was both interesting and useful. During the workshop some of the companies found matching interests businesswise. We also identified some interesting new research topics, such as how to obtain integrity/security when running multiple applications on a sim-card.

Collaboration with the VRI (Agder) projects - Future SIM - Wireless Instrumentation - Mesh networking

In Agder Wireless future is collaborating with VRI-Agder in three projects.

A feasibility study to outline the possibilities in future SIM card technology and architecture is co-financed with VRI-Agder. The partners in the VRI project are Devoteam Telecom, Applica Consulting and University of Agder, however both Telenor R&I and UNIK are contributing to the project. Results of the project will be made available to the participants in the network, probably in a work shop to define further activities in Wireless future related to Future SIM.

The Research Council of Norway encourage collaboration between Arena projects and the VRI project. The collaboration was quite obvious in this case because the project management of Wireless Future (Agder node) and the ICT part of VRI Agder both sits at Coventure AS (formerly Sørlandets Teknologisenter AS).

Other VRI projects in the Agder region are also related to wireless technology such as a project involving Scanmatic, Origo Engineering/Origo Mobikom, University of Agder and Devoteam Telecom which is looking into ad-hoc wireless industrial instrumentation. Another project have been looking into Mesh networking and Wimax test/live-lab facilities involving in particular NextNet, University of Agder and Devoteam Telecom.

Future SIM workshop in cooperation with ATC

In collaboration with Unik and Movation Wirless future arranged a workshop during the ATC conference June 23 - 25 focusing on "The Role of the SIM in a World of Personalized Services and Connected Objects".


New SIM card technology may lead to a paradigm shift in architecture, functionality, and services of future communication devices. In the workshop new technologies that just have become available was presented by two of the leading players in the world. There where many interesting discussions during the workshop, and as a consequence of the workshop two large enterprises entered into collaboration for a trial project. Also Wireless future has started a project in Southern Norway to further explore the opportunities of the new technology.

In view of the importance of this development for the wireless industry I had whished to see every member in our network in the workshop. That did not happen, though the few but most important players where all there. We just have to accept that most of the members in our network are small companies beeing focused on mastering their daily challanges which gives them very little time for considering new opportunities or threats.

Here you may find links to the presentations.

Open Nordic Mobile

June 19 - 20 Wireless future in cooperation with Trolltech and Telenor arranged the Open Nordic Mobile conference as one of several legs of the Open Nordic conference in Skien.

The program of the Open Nordic Mobile leg was well balanced covering both status and future development within Open Source SW and HW. Mikko Terho from Nokia and Terrence Barr from SUN where main attractions in program for the Mobile leg.

The quality of the presentations was generally excellent, creating a work shop atmosphere with rewarding discussions. Nokia/Trolltech and SUN represents different types of software development philosophies, partly competing and partly completing each other. With Nokia from now on standardizing on Trolltech QT it will indeed be interesting to follow how this will effect future mobile SW development.

Although we were quite satisfied with the content of the conference, we were not satisfied having only 30-40 participants in average listening to the presentations. Also the other legs of the Open Nordic had fewer visitors than expected although an excellent program. We thus believe that having a Nordic conference on the Midsummer Evening is not a good idea.

The collaboration with EZ/Open Nordic worked out well, despite that small but important things went wrong. F.ex. the link to the presentation of mobile leg only worked now and then, the mobile leg and our sponsors did not get the attention we expected.

In summary though we are happy with the results, but if we do it again we will do it another way.

Smart Living Seminar in Kristiansand

In Southern Norway there is a large cluster of wirless companies colaborating with the Wireless Future in the subproject Intelligent environments. June 5. Devoteam Telecom, one of the main players of the cluster, hosted a full day seminar for Smart Living in Kristiansand.

Devoteam Telecom is the former GPRS development department of Ericsson having world class competence within development of GSM networks. Devoteam Telecom is still a major development contractor for Ericsson, but since divestment the business of Devoteam has expanded to several new areas like m2m where smart living is an interersting sector.

The program of the seminar had a wide span, from home automation to car sharing based on mobile technology, to entertainment. Wireless Future contributed with an overview stressing new trends within mobile software developement. For Wireless Future members the Devoteam presentation of IMS was of special interest.

The seminar ended late in the evnening with mingling, seafood and a fantastic trip by boat from Lillesand to Kristiansand.

Link to wf presentation (samme as Eliaden):

Eliaden

Eliaden is the biggest exhibition for the Norwegian Electro sector. Through Dag Sjong, responsible for the Wirless Future Intelligent Environments and Oil & Gas activities, Wireless Future arranged a seminar regarding "Intelligent environments", and also arranged a show "A day of the primeminister in 2018", illustrating how technology changes our lives.

The show catched a lot of attention, both in media and among the visitors of the exhibition. From experience we know that seminars at exhibitions seldom attracts large groups. This experice was confirmed, but our half day seminar attracted an interested and qulified audience and two journalist. There were only few participants from the Electro sector itselves.

In addition to participating in the arrangement of the seminar Wirless Future also contributed with a lecture that can be found here:.

BSR meeting in Stockholm may lead to new projects

May 6 – 7. Wireless future was representing Norway at a BSR Innonet meeting targeting the ICT-pilot of BSR (Baltic Sea Region) with focus on the entire value chain of mobile devices. For information re. BSR Innonet and the ICT-pilot se enclosed presentation. Also enclosed are presentations of the organizations participating in the meeting.
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Except Wireless future, all participants in the Pilot are having functions in the innovation systems of local clusters. There was no representative from Denmark. This makes it a challenge to achieve results on a broad BSR level as the process does not have a broad and natural foundation in the structures of the BSR wireless industry or its markets, but is driven by local interests.

For Wireless future (Wf) this limits the value of the Pilot, as in assisting a company in our network in selecting international partners we would propose the most relevant players in each region of interest based on most relevant measures for strengthening the competitiveness of the company. Other suggestions may be suboptimal and not lead to a strengthening at all.

As Wireless future is a large network with many companies, there are at least a few companies with unique values from a global perspective in the clusters of the BSR pilot that is likely to match the needs of one or more companies in Wireless future. To become a strategic opportunity though, timing for matching must be right which is less likely when colaborating with a few local networks compared to large natinonal networks. However, as a result of the meeting an interesting case came up which will be evaluated.

Main conclusions of the meeting were to further investigate four pilot activities:

1. a workshop on ICT-solutions for low energy living (Finland) November 2008, Oulu, Finland
2. a workshop for ITS- roadmap to be presented at the global ITS conference in Stockholm 2009 (Responsible - Norway)
3. co-location og the BSR region at existing fairs (Sweden)
4. a joint paper on female leadership in the ICT-sector (Poland) Month 2009, Europe

The first two activities fit within the objectives and activities of Wireless future, the main value being contributing with other perspectives to Wireless future “Intelligent environments” project and forming of international and more visible business networks from discovering of commonalities and complimentary interest during the process.

I have mixed feelings for activity 3. as expanding to the BSR region in profiling of the companies may degrade the global trade mark of Nordic wireless technology and I am not sure about the upside for Norwegian companies. For companies in Sweden or Finland the countries in the Baltic region is an important market for expansion in itself, but also for expansion into Russia and other eastern european markets. Maybe the BSR-project could be an opportunity for Norwegian companies to learn more about these markets.

It was also discussed to try to coordinate activities like Exhibitions and Congresses in the BSR countries, and maybe even merge some of them in order to get at stronger global impact.

Generally visibility is important for companies in the markets of the customers they are addressing. For the participants in the Wireless future network the most important regions for visibility and presence are the Nordic countries, then the European countries and then the rest of the world.

In view of that:

· Nokia, Ericsson, SonyEricsson, and Telenor are among the leading global players having their roots in the Nordic countries, and that
· most major terminal development companies have development departments in the Nordic area, and that
· within wireless components, products and services many of the Nordic players are among the global leaders, and that
· Nordic universities have leading positions within some of the fields of knowledge forming the future wireless society

it should be possible to get Nordic, European and global visibility for Nordic events. That would lower the barriers for our network participants to go international considerably and attract more attention to our industry.

From a Norwegian perspective the most valuable result of the meeting was to establish a consortium to plan an Artemis project. This consortium may include the small Norwegian company Radiocrafts. From discussions with Radiocrafts it has become clear that Radiocrafts is interested provided that business opportunities and funding is available.

Next step is to clarify the interest if the Finish partner. We believe that maybe Statoil or Telenor could participate in the project as demanding customers, but have a lot sort out before considering this option in depth. We are also considering if there are opportunities for Sintef, ABB, Baze and Devotean in this project. Sintef may have to compete with groups at the university of Oulu.

A project draft can be found here:

It seems as Finish companies can do with a very much lower equity ratio then Norwegian companies, as the Finish government contributes with financing in addition to EU. This may reduce the Norwegian contribution.

Kick off for development program for Mobile Media Technology Enterprises

April 2 Wireless future in cooperation with IT-Fornebu, Oslo Teknopol, Abelia and Innovation Norway arranged a workshop for the providers of mobile media technology.

With almost 50 participants, of which almost 30 represented mobile media technology companies, the most important Norwegian companies in the business participated. Objectives of the workshop was to present and kickoff a sector development process for:

1. a technology and market analysis for strategic road mapping of the next 2-3 years
   
2. an internationalization program, starting with USA, but also including other markets dependent on opportunities at hand (South Africa, China, India,..?).

In the first part of the agenda in the first presentation, the Wireless Future program for development of enablers of mobile rich media services was presented (v. Wireless Future/P. Thornér). The effect of collaboration on gearing of competitiveness was pointed out and briefly explained.

In the second presentation the process of using Forsight type of scenario methodology for strategic Road-mapping analysis was explained (Daniel Nordstad Grönquist, Norrman Partners).

Within the next two weeks an invitation will be sent out to the 50 companies interested in participating in development program. We do not know how many of these companies are interested in participating in the Road-map process, but as the interest seemed large in the workshop, and we only may accommodate up to 20 participants, we may have to apply a first come first served principle. For participating in the Roadmap process there will be a fee of the order of 10.000 NOK/company.

In the second part of the workshop regarding "Influencing the international market"Telenor and Telenor Playground was presented (v. Karianne Prytz, Head of Services, Telenor Global Coordination, Markets). Telenor Playground is an offer for technology providers to test their products. The process to qualify for playground was described. Two companies in the meeting already had products in Playground, and further 10 companies found the offering of Telenor of interest.

The planned overview of MMA and possibilities to influence MMA (v. Anne Lise Katle, Head of Mobile Content Telenor and board member of MMA) had to be postponed to the next workshop.

In the short presentations regarding entering new markets Anders Ljungquist from Ability AS gave a verbal presentation of his experiences from over 20 years of global business development and sales, then Hans Talleraas presented the offering of Norad for market development and Steinar Svalesen from Teleplan as gave a comprehensive presentation of his experiences from development of The mobile media company in USA. Steinar pointed out that having Telenor as an owner created attention and opened doors on high level in large companies, which may be a challange for SMC's.

Tony Raposo gave a short overview of the market and services of Innovation Norway in USA before the presentation of Soren Schaft of Opportunities and challenges entering the mobile media market in USA. The presentation of Soren gave an excellent overview of opportunities and challanges in the US market, wich indeed is quite different from other markets.

Some ideas for collaboration was tested and received a positve respons, including putting up som kind of collaboration umbrella or sales company to get executive attention from large companies and at large trade shows.

Finally it was concluded that there is an interest for both the development processes. Before next meeting an analysis of the market presence and plans of companies in Norway will be done. The results of the accumulated analysis will be presented as a bakground for planning of common activities, whereas individual data from each company will be treated as confidential.

The presentation of Soren Schaft who was at CITA in LA was given using Skype. Impressive quality with last Skype release:

Workshop on wireless technologies for the intelligent buildings and smart home business

Together with the Norwegian RFID resource network Wirless future arranged a workshop March 12. aiming at getting an overview of status of the Norwegian offering and experiences and to find out what needs to be done to utilize technology to reduce buildings costs and get buildings that increases user efficiency and comfort while reducing cost of operation and environmental loads.

The workshop engaged in the order of 40 participants mainly from the building sector. Status is characterized by:

• Manny of different standards and proprietary solutions creates barriers for real estate owners to use products from new suppliers
• Some real estate owners prefers traditional solutions not to get dependent of proprietary solutions
• The experiences of users are that suppliers has been promising more than they could deliver. In one project that was presented the supplier is now able to deliver what he promised 6 years ago. However, the technology is starting to become mature today in some areas, as for example alarm systems.
• Generally, the competence in the different parts of the value chain is low => Intelligent solutions are not a asked for in generall RFQ's => Only market addressed by suppliers of intelligent solutions is projects managed by the real estate owners themselves.

For a general maturing of the market a broad approch involving all the players in value chain is required.

Real estate owners needs to get a better understanding of the benefits of the technology. Studies of best practice from the oil and gaz industry, and experience from "intelligent hospitals" may give some information. However, there is a need for more knowledge from practical experiences.
Real estate owners would like to have plug and play open solutions allowing connectivity of different types of systems from different suppliers both on physical and on application level. Some suppliers claim that they can offer that. However, in a broad perspective it was acknowledged that there is a need for harmonization and standardization as well as competence and in some areas for more open system architectures.

There was a general commitment of the participants in then workshop to contribute to the process of maturing the market, although no specific projects where defined.

Innovation Norway made a presentation of how "IFU/OFU" projects may be financed.

What's going on

Current activites are :

• Kick of for development program for "Enablers of mobile rich media publishing and rich media services" (April 2'nd)
• Establishment of general specifications for intelligent buildings using a new IT-Forebu building as an exsample (April 1'st)
• Planning of Open Space meeting for Mobile business development day (Board meeting April 23)
• Planning of Open Nordic Mobile Software and ATC conferences
  
• Follow up of meeting with main players (Statoil, Telenor R&I, Telenor Iris, WTEK, Sonitor, Blaze, Radionor) within Oil & Gas wireless positioning services (date to be announced)




• Follow up of the Wireless Patient project
• Follow up of Integerated Operations project
• May ETC contribute with technology and know how to a container tracking system
• Getting the Intelligent building activities of the Agder companies coordinated with whats going on in the rest of country (Eliaden, IT-Fornebu, Follow up March 12 meeting)
• Clarification of cooperation with Veivesenet and ITS Norway on ITS

Welcome

Welcome to the Blog of the Wirless Future Network in Norway. This Blog reports and reflects on our efforts to enhance the competitive power of the almost 200 wireless technology enterprises of the network.