2011 - An Eventful kalmstrom.com Year

The year 2011 was a year full of action when it comes to world politics, and at the end of the year we have many worries and unanswered questions. You know them as well as I do, so here I will instead concentrate on kalmstrom.com. That makes it possible for me to write a happier blog!

120 blog posts in 2011
One year is a long time in the IT business, where changes happen quickly and we hear news nearly every day. In 2011 I wrote 119 blog articles, except this one, and most of them were about kalmstrom.com events. If you want more info about something I mention here, just use the Search function to the left to find the post or posts.

New staff
In the beginning of 2011 several new people joined the team, and this has had ‒ and will have ‒ a strong impact on the kalmstrom.com software. Most visible has of course been the work of graphic designer Jitendra Joshi, but our three new developers has contributed just as much.

Silver Competencies
One of the new developers, Vijayant Rimza, has tested our products for a Microsoft Silver Partnership. They passed the tests, and as we also fulfilled the other qualifications we could gain no less than two Silver Competencies, first Independent Software Vendor and then Business Intelligence. A warm thank you from the whole team to the Community Members who helped us with references for Microsoft. The Silver competencies, together with Peter’s personal Microsoft certifications, make kalmstrom.com Business Solutions stand out on the market, and we have already noticed an increased interest for our Office applications.

Product updates
All kalmstrom.com products have been updated, and most of them several times. HelpDesk OSP for Outlook and SharePoint and the resource booking application Calendar Browser have new major version numbers, V3 and V7, and PF HelpDesk has reached both 11.2 and 11.3. kalmstrom.com Outlook add-ons, The kalmstrom.com tool for time reporting from within the Outlook calendar had version 4.3 the whole year, but in January 2012 we plan to release kalmstrom.com Outlook add-ons, TimeCard V4.4 with new, interesting features.

iOS apps
During 2011 kalmstrom.com Business Solutions also published two apps for iPhone, iPad and iPod: iNameDays gives you name days in the standard calendar, and with ShareTask you get the SharePoint tasks into your handheld and can manage them with a finger.

Extended compatibility
When Microsoft introduces new platforms the kalmstrom.com developers are usually quick in making our products compatible. In 2011 we extended our product support to Office 365, and the Windows Azure database was added as a third alternative for our Outlook issue tracking tool PF HelpDesk. We also started the development of a new application, HelpDesk OSP Azure, which we first will use for the kalmstrom.com support before we start marketing it.

New Partner
In May kalmstrom.com begun cooperating with a new partner, and for the first time ever we agreed to market a product that is not our own: PamFax. Peter was involved in the development of the first version of this convenient tool for online faxing when he was product manager at Skype, though, and we also use it ourselves. I translated the application into Swedish, and our new Sales and Relations Officer, Siret Toots, made the Estonian translation.

More extensive Tips section
The Tips section of the kalmstrom.com website is popular, and during the year we have added a number of new articles. By the end of 2011 Peter made a series of demonstrations for various useful tricks with Excel and SharePoint.

Now we look forward to the new year with great confidence. There is no crisis in kalmstrom.com! I will come back with a blog post about future development next week, and until then I wish all blog readers a great New Years Eve!

Evening Enjoyments For The kalmstrom.com Team

Peter’s and Siret's week with the kalmstrom.com team in Indore has nearly come to an end. I have earlier told you about their excursion to Mandu and their work and studies during the other days. This article will be about the evenings.

Indian cooking
The kalmstrom.com Sales and Relations Officer loves to cook, so she was delighted when she was invited to the home of Lead Developer Jayant and Developer Vijayant, and she was allowed to take part in the dinner preparations. Here is Siret's story:

"Last night I was given a cooking lesson with an Indian Mama in her kitchen. Is there anything more awesome? We started with a curry, and the next step was making wheat bread and corn bread. From a dough of flour, water and just a pinch of salt we rolled little balls which were
flattened and fried on upside turned pans. Then just a quick turn in the open flame to give it color and that’s it!


Mrs. Rimza had already stuffed okra with dried mango and chili paste, so all we had to do was to fry them in oil. Masala Chicken was to be the last recipe. The food was fragrant, colorful and beyond tasty! I have bought with me all the necessary spices, and now I am looking forward to returning to my own kitchen to try things out.
I am so grateful to Jayant's and Vijayant's mother and to Jayant's wife for opening their kitchen to me!"



Going to the movies
One evening the whole group went to see Mission Impossible 4. It was a good movie to see with the team, because half of it was filmed in nearby Mumbai and the bad guy was Swedish! (The company owners, Peter, Sigge and I, are Swedish too.)

Fast food was served in the movie theatre, and Siret had a three year old eating a big hamburger right above her! She got her share of it, but apart from that she said it was all fun.

Farewell dinner
The last evening Peter took Siret and the Indore team members to a dinner. They went to a newly opened restaurant and were very well taken care of by the staff there.

This visit to Indore has been a wonderful experience to Peter and Siret, and they have been fantastically well received by the Indore team members. But it has also been very intense, so now they will take a short vacation to rest before they return to the Swedish winter.

Continuous Studies Crucial To kalmstrom.com Developers

When you work in a business that changes as fast as ours, you have to be eager to learn new things to keep up. The Indian members of the kalmstrom.com team are all highly educated and intelligent, but they need some help from the expert, our CEO Peter, to learn the most advanced parts of new IT technology. Therefore he takes the opportunity to lecture on subjects important to the future development of the kalmstrom.com Office add-ons now that he is visiting the team in Indore.


A joy for both parties
These teaching sessions have not only been useful but also a great joy for everyone. “I am so proud of my team”, said Peter yesterday evening. “I really loved teaching them today!”

That is a very good testimonial coming from Peter. He is a Microsoft certified Trainer, and in addition to his work as CEO and program designer at kalmstrom.com Business Solutions he lectures on Sweden’s most advanced IT courses. Therefore he is used to ‒ and spoiled with! ‒ having clever pupils.

Lead Developer Jayant counters with: “Peter is a great teacher. Today we learned many new things about the endless possibilities of SharePoint. I am looking forward for tomorrow’s class.”  In the image above you can also see the developers Kanak, Sunil and Vijayant. I asked Siret for a photo, so she slipped into the conference room to take some for me. But the team was disturbed an "kicked" her out again after a few shots. They wanted to continue the studies in peace!

SharePoint expansion
Yesterday Peter was talking about general SharePoint-functionality, tips and tricks as well as development opportunities for kalmstrom.com. Today he will go into some detail on how to start expanding our range of SharePoint products.

Here are Peter's own words:
"So far we have mainly done client-side applications, but we intend to provide also server-side features and mobile applications that use the new SharePoint 2010 tools. All of our applications rely on a shared information store. Usually that is a network file share with a database in Access or SQL, but we hope to add SharePoint as an alternate choice for all of our applications shortly.

Thus Members of kalmstrom.com Community will be able to send their time reporting data directly to a SharePoint list from TimeCard and store meeting information in multiple calendar lists from Calendar Browser. We also hope to merge the features of our two issue tracking applications, HelpDesk OSP and PF HelpDesk by adding more server-side functionality to HelpDesk OSP. "

Saturday studies
When Peter is not visiting the team still has common studies. Every other Saturday is working day in India, but the kalmstrom.com team normally use these days for studies. They meet at the office and go through a program Peter has prepared for them, and in the evening they often have dinner together, when also the non-technical staff join in.

These Saturdays are much appreciated by the team, and in the end all users of the kalmstrom.com software will benefit from them. A knowledgeable team that work well together can do much to improve the products, and Peter welcomes all suggestions from his team and listens carefully to their opinions. When everyone pulls in the right direction it will show in the result!

Beautiful Trip To Historical Mandu Brings The kalmstrom.com Team Together

On the second day of Peter’s and Siret’s visit to Indore, the Indian members of the kalmstrom.com team took them to the historical town of Mandu. It was founded in the 10th century and is full of interesting monuments.  The town is beautifully situated among lush hills around 100 kilometers from Indore, and the team had hired their own bus to take them there.

Peter:
"I was impressed by the well-preserved castle from the 15th century. It had indoor plumming, air-conditioning, a theatre and lots of other modern facilities. The only problem seems to have been that there were too many blondes in the harem, but they solved that by adding a lake with henna in the water. I tried to push Siret into it, to see if it still worked, but she was surrounded by admirers who did not allow it."

Above kalmstrom.com CEO Peter with his Indore team, all young and very talented people. From the left Vijayant (Developer), Vipul (Office Manager), Peter, Jitendra (Graphic Designer), Sunil (Developer), Jayant (Lead Developer), Kanak (Developer) and Neha (QA Engineer).

Siret:
"There is India you see as a tourist and then there is India you see when you are traveling with some local friends. Peter Kalmström and I just returned to our hotel in Indore after spending an amazing day in Mandu. Off the beaten track, exquisite architecture, fascinating local life and good food. Thank you Team for taking us there!”

Two Executives. I doubt it is history or architecture Peter and Jayant are discussing here below. Rather some new, fascinating kalmstrom.com product!

The photos from Mandu are taken by Siret, Jayant and Jitendra. Thanks for sharing them!

kalmstrom.com CEO Visits New kalmstrom.com Office In Indore, India

Today I can show you some photos from the new kalmstrom.com office in India. The team had outgrown the old premises, so it felt great when they could move into new ones last week. All is not in order yet, of course, but the internet connection and the new furniture is in place, and there is a temporary sign on the door and a welcoming painting on the marble floor. The office is situated on the top floor of this house in Indore, and it has a nice, shady balcony with a view.

kalmstrom.com CEO Peter arrived in Indore Sunday, and Lead Developer Jayant Rimza and Office Manager Vipul Dindulkar took him to the office for a first look.

Peter tried the new desks and chairs and was happy that the white board was in place in the conference room for his lectures later this week.

As the kalmstrom.com team works in two time zones, the two
clocks are important pieces of equipment. Since users of the kalmstrom.com software are found all over the world, we would actually need more clocks!

I sincerely hope our Indian team members will enjoy their office and find it a stimulating work place. They are worth it!