Archive for the ‘Poland’ Category
Written on July 14, 2008 – 4:27 pm
David Petherick, Next Web WebTipr United Kingdom
Image via WikipediaSocietas Privata Europaea (SPE) is a proposed EU-wide company type designed specifically for small to medium sized companies to operate in EU member countries, which could be enacted as soon as 2009. This is a core part of the Small Business Act for Europe, which the European Commission unveiled at the end of June, based on ten guiding principles and proposing policy actions for both the Commission and Member States.
Here are some of the headlines in what is being planned:
- An SPE formation should be effected within 7 days.
- A cap on obtaining business licences and permits of one month.
- Lower VAT for services supplied locally.
- SMEs can set up their company in the same form, no matter if they do business in their own Member State or in another.
- Cut the administrative burden by 25% by 2012.
The press release begins with the wonderful phrase “a step towards a Europe of entrepreneurs, with less red tape and more red carpet for Europe’s 23 million SMEs“. [English Version] [Dutch Version] A set of Frequently Asked Questions also helps to explain the benefits of this initiative.
The lawyers, accountants, international tax experts, company formation outfits and administrative bureaucrats will hate this, as they have long grown fat from the cumbersome and often antiquated legislation and regulations that small businesses are forced to deal with, often irrespective of their size, and the necessity to follow separate, complex, and expensive company formation rules and registrations in each country. I would not be too surprised to see attempts from these types of organisations to slow down and undermine this initiative, as it of course lessens their role, and reduces the number of intermediaries involved when a company expands and works in more than one country.
However, the European entrepreneurs of today and tomorrow will love this - and it is in the long-term interests of every member nation in Europe to support this type of initiative. This is how one creates the jobs of tomorrow. It is a sad fact that long-term enlightened thinking has not always been a strong point for politicians and entrenched vested interests in Europe, so it is up to enterepreneurs across Europe to applaud, support and spread the word about this initiative.
I hope you like that post!
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Written on June 11, 2008 – 3:25 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Although the Germans have a patent on the copy-cat approach - Freundefeed, anyone? -, Spanish entrepreneurs recently proved to master this unique skill as well. And now there’s 24-year-old computing student Maciej Popowicz from Poland who also seems to get that the best business plan is to import a brilliant idea from abroad. He built Nasza-klasa, a Polish version of Britain’s Friends Reunited, France’s Copains d’avant, and Holland’s Schoolbank eighteen months ago. What came next, is well described by IOL Technology:
It has taken Poland’s Internet world by storm, and claims 11 million users, giving it widest coverage and penetration in this country of 38 million people, well ahead of YouTube’s 6,4 million Polish-based users.
To complete this entrepreneurial fairy-tale, TechCrunch reported earlier today that Estonia’s Forticom has acquired a majority stake in nasza-klasa for 200 million PLN, or 60 million Euros. From now on, Forticom will reach 7.5 million monthly users.
Although it isn’t the classiest way of making money, copying a successful service from abroad does make sense. People generally have the same needs - in this case: connecting with old classmates -, so why not offering them a localized version?
If you liked reading this post, you might want to subscribe to our RSS feed to read more European tech news. We cover Poland quite often. Did you know for example that Poland is Firefox heaven?
Written on April 19, 2008 – 11:33 am
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
As we reported last week, France is on the verge of adopting a law against “incitement to anorexia” that is mainly focused on the web. It wouldn’t be the last Internet-related law this week, since the European Union announced some tight laws against “incitement to terrorism” on the Internet. By doing this, the EU wants to fight militant groups who amongst other things recruit and mobilize young people.
A statement by the ministers said that the existing Framework Decision of 13 June 2002 will be expanded by introducing three new offenses: “public provocation to commit a terrorist offense, recruitment and training for terrorism.”
Reuters reports that countries like Spain and Italy already punish public provocation to terrorism, but others, like Scandinavian countries will have to change their laws. Spain’s secretary of state for justice, Julio Perez Hernandez, told the press agency that “The battle to anticipate terrorist acts is crucial for Spain. One should not wait for smoke to know there is terrorism.”
Although the statement says that it’s “well-balanced in terms of its effects on freedom of speech and general respect for human rights”, civil action groups will probably ring the alarm bells. Though I’m not sure whether the public will actually care. Europeans have seen so many anti-terrorism laws that limit their freedom already, that they might have become numb for amendments like these.
Written on January 30, 2008 – 12:29 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
On-line research institute XiTi has published a study about Firefox’ market share in Europe. I think I speak for most web developers, if I say that the more Firefox users, the better. Well, ‘we’ won some more souls:
After a period of stabilization from June to September 2007, Mozilla Firefox’s visit share, for the average of European countries of the XiTi perimeter, is again growing at the end of the year. Thus, over a one year vision, it gains 5 points in order to reach 28% in December 2007.
The growth isn’t spectacular though and in some countries the user rate of Firefox is actually shrinking. In Denmark, Firefox usage falls back with 0.6 percent. In Ukraine this is in 0.3 percent and in the country where The Next Web Blog is based - The Netherlands - it’s 0.1 percent. To make it even worse for me and my fellow Dutch developers, we’re the country with the lowest user rate. It’s only 14.7 percent.
Maybe web developers should move to one of the three leading countries in Firefox share: Finland (45.4%), Slovenia (44.6%) and Poland (42.4%). Or the Internet community should try to create a ‘Spread Firefox‘ revival. It would save us all lots of time:
Taken from: theMaablog: Where Does a Web Developer Spend Their Time
Image via WikipediaSocietas Privata Europaea (SPE) is a proposed EU-wide company type designed specifically for small to medium sized companies to operate in EU member countries, which could be enacted as soon as 2009. This is a core part of the Small Business Act for Europe, which the European Commission unveiled at the end of June, based on ten guiding principles and proposing policy actions for both the Commission and Member States.
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