IBM Innovation Center

This week I have attended the Swedish IBM Partner Summit in Tylösand. I was invited to speak about our use of IBM Innovation Center in Stockholm.

At the Innovation Centers integrators and ISV:s can develop and test their solutions on IBM hardware and software. It is free of charge for IBM partners.

We used it two times this spring. First we tried our product Spikeflow (a tool to build and deploy electronic forms) on WebSphere and DB2. We contacted the staff at the Innovation Center in advanced and they asked us what hardware and software we needed. When we arrived at the site everything was ready. We got an office with ethernet and a terminal to access the servers involved. We had access to IBM engineers to help us to configure WebSphere and DB2.

During the second visit we developed an integration plugin for Spikeflow. I worked with a Domino engineer from IBM. It took us eight hours to create a working prototype. Then I spend a few more days to make it usable.

For us as a small startup this service is fantastic. As partners we can download the IBM software we need, but having everything setup in advance saves a lot of time and money. And the access to IBM engineers to answer questions was very valuable.

If you are an IBM Partner you should check if you have an Innovation Center close by. I can truly recommend the Innovation Center in Kista, outside of Stockholm. The staff is dedicated and fun to work with.

Here is the success story.

The brightest female developers are in Sri Lanka

During my years in software development I haven’t met a lot of good female developers. I might get killed by my feminist friends for saying it, but it’s the truth. I have met lots of really bright females working in software development, but not as developers. They might start off coding, but then they focus more on project management, UI, testing and other stuff.

This was until I worked in Sri Lanka. I don’t know why but some of the brightest Java developers I met there have been girls. They have the focus and that sense of software “craftswomanship” that I have yet to find in their sisters in Sweden.

Today some of these stars released a new version of flovv.com - the best multi page form builder.

Girl power!