As we have started more regional blogging here, let me begin by introducing what we call the Founder Initiative "unternimm was.", which works with venture capitalists and promising German start-ups to help Germany's high-tech industry grow. Numbers of new high-tech start-ups have been decreasing over the last years in Germany (not only after the internet bubble), so it is both in Microsoft's business interest as well as it's corporate responsibility to work for a flourishing start-up scene.

We are jointly working with our international Microsoft colleagues and external partners to achieve this goal and feel very happy, when Dan'l brought "a touch of Silicon Valley" to Hasso Plattner Ventures' last investors conference (sorry, article in German only).

Our main work is the "in-depth" support of individual start-ups, providing technical support, help in marketing & sales, or, in some cases, VC intrductions. We are currently supporting 18 companies in our program.

One of our latest addition is Munich based ubitexx, which has been introduced to us by their investor BayBG. Times are over that you need to manually configure all you mobiles and smartphones in your company. ubitexx provides "over the air" central mobile device management solutions for enterprises as well as mobile operators. This speeds up internal processes and provides a much higher level of security. ubitexx has won a number of prizes, among them the highly regarded European ICT prize in 2007 and they have been nominated finalist for Microsoft Partner of the Year award in their category.

We are always looking for ambitious, growth-oriented start-ups that see a significant lever in a partnership with Microsoft. Looking forward to see you!