SektorEn

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Software companies are regularly enlisted as members of associations which, while providing certain individual services for their members, at the political level, work against the interests of these members. The sektor project of FFII tries to find ways to improve our communication with software companies and work toward better forms of trade organisation and representation.

News & Chronology

• 2004-12-14 SI Slovenian ICT Industry Association Against Software Patents

• 2004-06-17 WO WIPO on SMEs

Purpose

• obtain and maintain accurate data about software companies in European countries in terms of
  • number of companies, employees per company
  • taxation, taxes paid
  • access to capital
  • business models
  • contributions to information infrastructure
• collect pointers to existing statistics
• ask national governmental organs for statistics where they are not on the Net
• interview different players in the software sector, document their views

• find participants for events such as the coming November Conference

• participate in ongoing research in software economics (e.g. Brigitte Andersen)

• talk to our supporters through FeedbackEn and AktivEn (polls), find out their interests

More Tasks

• contact CEC SME Envoy

  • SmeEnvoyEn working page

Project members

• Sylvain Perchaud
• Marco Schulze
• Laura Creighton
• Hartmut Pilch
• Daniel Roedding
• Alex Stohr

Project Mailing Lists

• http://lists.ffii.org/mailman/listinfo/sektor-parl/

• http://lists.ffii.org/mailman/listinfo/sektor-news/

Next Steps

• fully translate static document to English

  • first complete version by Dirk Hillbrecht, dhillbre, dh at cantamen de, exists

  • see translation instructions

• intensify existing contacts/partnerships with SME organisations
  • establish FFII as an organisation which defends SME interests (access to infrastructure at fair conditions is an eternal problem for the smaller players)

• http://www.destatis.de/ Information page of Statistisches Bundesamt

• Studies/data links of BVDW http://www.bvdw.org/ww/de/7_pub/marktforschung/marktzahlenmafojump.cfm

Positions of SME-related organisations on Swpat

Name of organisation (Country of organisation - Language of Document)

• CEA-PME (eu - en)

• DIHK (de - de)

• APOM (fr - fr)

• SME Union
• Bundesverband Mittelständische Wirtschaft

sub-projects

These may soon become independent, with their own mailing lists

• Communicating with corporate supporters

• Venture Capital

• Patents as Fiscal Tools

WIPO: SMEs contribute 90% to GDP of many countries

• WASME = World Association of Small and Medium Enterprises Workshop in Geneva from May 3 to 6, 2004, about 25 participants Report dated Geneva, May 11, 2004 Date: Thu, 13 May 2004 10:53:34 +0200 (CEST)

  From: publicinf@wipo.int To: pressinfo-en@lists.wipo.int Subject: Update 224: WIPO WASME Special Program Highlights Importance of\

  • Intellectual Property for Small and Medium Enterprises (Smes)
  [...] SMEs are a highly dynamic and economically important sector contributing more than 90% of the gross national product (GNP) of many countries. [...]

Given that practically all sectors (not just SW suppliers but SW users) are/will be affected by swpat, this number is worth mentioning.

Software-Offensive Bayern: 80% of IT employment in Bavaria in SMEs

Software-Offensive is a program run by the bavarian government to establish Bavaria as a key IT region in Europe.

According to figures given by SOB, the Munich region has 260k, Nuernberg 90K people employed in the IT sector. Of these 80% work in !SMEs. The weight of !SME employment is even higher in the software sector, because the big companies, such as Siemens, are mainly active in the hardware-related IT fields.

The people in the Bavarian Ministry of Economics who are in charge of SOB are not enthusiastic about the positions of Joachim Wuermeling.