Satama Interactive Plc is a leading digital services company. Our aim is to combine talent and technology to make work and client dialogue simple, fun and profitable. Our services portfolio focuses into three core business areas: Marketing, Productivity and Mobility. There are 350 experts in the Satama Group. We are based in Finland in Helsinki, Tampere, Turku and in Amsterdam, Dusseldorf and Stockholm. Satama’s net sales in 2005 were EUR 27.5 million. Satama Interactive Plc (SAI1V) shares are listed on the Helsinki Exchange. / www.satama.comSatama’s Expertise at the Core of the Development of the Revolutionary Microsoft SurfaceSatama has been chosen as one of the members of Microsoft’s Surface Partner Advisory Council for the next two years. The Partner Advisory Council is an inherent element of Microsoft’s product development in Redmond, US, and it offers a chance for the partners to have a say on the contents and business models of the new product area.

Microsoft’s latest innovation, Surface, takes the possibilities and user-friendliness of computers to a completely new level. Surface combines a desk, a computer and a massive horizontal touch-screen, which reacts to human touch and objects. On the surface the device looks a little like a coffee table but the tabletop is actually a touch-screen, which can be controlled by hand – or in fact by many hands, as Surface recognises multi-touch contact.

“We are extremely delighted to have been invited to the heart of Surface’s development. Satama sees Surface as a significant long-term business opportunity in Finland and Europe. It is important for us to be able to influence the decisions that are being made in Redmond and to have a chance to steer the development of the product area and take part in planning new business models” says Esa Kanninen, Satama’s representative in the Surface Partner Advisory Council.

“It is extremely rare for a Finnish company to be invited along to the Partner Advisory Council. We see the fact that Satama was chosen as a tribute to Finnish expertise. Microsoft believes that Satama can contribute unique expertise and insight to the product development process,” says Teemu Salovaara, Partner Account Manager at Microsoft.

Thanks to its user-friendliness and interactivity, Surface is ideal for restaurants, hotels, information centres and other public facilities, for example. Surface combines Satama’s core competences: understanding customer dialogues, user experience know-how and creative design as well as expertise in Microsoft technology.

In a restaurant, for example, Surface will be able to automatically detect when a customer places a glass on it. A menu will appear, as if by magic, next to the glass. When it comes to paying the bill, Surface divides the total between the number of glasses on the table. Browsing and zooming in and out of pictures taken with a mobile phone is just as easy – just place the phone on Surface’s touch-screen.

Surface will be in the shops before the end of the year.

Links:
http://www.microsoft.com/surface/

Lisätietoja:

Esa Kanninen
Director, Sales & Marketing
Satama Mobility
Tel. +358 (0)400 405 953
e-mail: [email protected]

Jari Pullinen
Director, Sales & Marketing
Satama Productivity
Tel. +358 (0)40 769 4443
e-mail: [email protected]

Teemu Salovaara
Partner Account Manager
Microsoft Finland
Tel. +358 (0)50 554 1651
e-mail: [email protected]