Bizstartup.ie - NewsMore than 400 Irish start-ups have joined BizSpark

In excess of 400 companies have joined the BizSpark programme which brings them into a development ecosystem of 30,000 firms worldwide.

Giving start-ups access to development tools with no up-front costs

Under the BizSpark initiative, Microsoft provides start-ups and entrepreneurs easy access to development tools and server products with no up-front costs.

The Irish programme also includes discounts on the purchase of Dell hardware and preferential rates from hosting providers like Blacknight, C-Infinity, Digiweb, Eircom and Hosting 365.

In terms of software, the programme will provide start-ups with access to current full-featured development tools, platform technologies and production licences of server products.

Irish entrepreneurial spirit – a willingness to take risks

When asked why Irish start-ups proportionally have a higher participation, Reeves said: “I don’t really know how to put a single reason for this but there’s clearly an entrepreneurial spirit, perhaps in spite of Government,” he jokes. “It is true though that the environment feels different here than somewhere like Germany. There’s a willingness to take risks and everybody here knows each other.

Try, fail and get up and try again!

“It’s these things that lift the (Silicon) Valley where it’s cool to be an entrepreneur, super-cool to fail and there’s always someone to encourage you to fail, where you’re not seen as a crazy inventor.”

A number of established Irish technology companies have found the BizSpark programme constructive in their overall growth trajectory.

For example, Ian Lucey of Lucey Technology said it helped his secure payments company to accelerate growth.

Lucey founded the company with the goal of taking services usually available to larger businesses and making them available to smaller customers. Lucey Technology’s software is developed using Microsoft’s SharePoint platform.

“We’ve done the math and estimated that being part of the programme has saved us €292,000 over three years. We’ve used the tools to create development packs and the licensing to go into production. We would have had to raise another €200,000 to put infrastructure in place.”

Photo: Cliff Reeves, global head of Emerging Business, Microsoft, with Inistech’s Aidan Gallagher, Conor O’Riordan of TradeFacilitate and Ian Lucey of Lucey Technology

 Article courtesy of Siliconrepublic.com