Ms. Elaine Rossall and Mr. Neil Gorman have conducted a thorough report illuminating key factors in relocating firms’ perceptions towards European location. They main findings are:

With a slow recovery from recession and with companies continuing to focus on being located in cities that can provide them with a cost effective yet efficient base, cities continue to be in competition with each other to attract inward investment. The European Cities Monitor examines a number of key issues that corporate consider when considering new locations and indicates how effectively each European city is perceived to perform and where improvements are seen to have been made over the last year.

Best cities to locate a business today:

London is still the leading city in which to do business, with a similar score to 2009. Paris remains in second place and Frankfurt in third, with the gap between second and third place closing slightly.

Brussels regains fourth place from Barcelona, while Amsterdam moves back up the ranking to sixth place.

This year the most impressive rise in the rankings is seen by Vienna, increasing six places to 22nd.

Düsseldorf moves up from 15th to 10th over the year, while Manchester also advances four places from 16th to 12th.

This year both Edinburgh and Bratislava are new cities to the ranking, and they are ranked 27th and 32nd respectively.

Top 10 EU cities to locate a business today are:

1.            London

2.            Paris

3.            Frankfurt

4.            Brussels

5.            Barcelona

6.            Amsterdam

7.            Berlin 

8.            Madrid 

9.            Munich 

10.          Düsseldorf 

 The above data is extracted from the original report.  The full report can be downloaded from Cushman & Wakefield’s site: http://www.europeancitiesmonitor.eu

IBC Amsterdam, is traditionally scheduled for mid September every year. It is the leading international IT forum for the electronic media industry. It is practically one of the largest IT conferences in Europe, attracting roughly 49,000 visitors and 1,300 exhibitors from more than 130 countries. IBC combines a highly respected and peer reviewed conference, an exhibition that demonstrates media innovative technology and networking opportunities.

IBC period is a paradise on earth for local Amsterdam hotels, restaurants, bars and taxi drivers as much as it is hell if you are a tourist or a businessman seeking a room in the city.

If you are reading this post from a distance, it might be useful to know IBC 2010 dates: 9 to 14 September 2010, at the Amsterdam RAI. You can visit the website at: www.ibc.org

This evening, the IBC organization acknowledged the pioneers in media creation, management, delivery and innovation as it does every year. One special award was given to Amber alert that I would like to share with you.

Amber Alert Netherlands

 The Amber Alert Netherlands, an innovative cross-platform system designed to spread information about a missing child as quickly as possible.

If a child becomes missing the system, developed by Netpresenter, gives the Dutch police one single point of access to push out alerts simultaneously to radio, television and the press. AMBER also delivers online messages to individuals and businesses who have registered for the service to computers, as SMS and instant messages, website alerts and RSS news feeds.

 “Amber Alert” was named after Amber Hagerman, the 9-year-old who was kidnapped while riding her bicycle in Arlington, Texas in 1996, and then murdered.

The first time the system was used in the Netherlands, the child was found within 45 minutes of the alert being issued by the police. Restaurant employees recognised the child from the alert message on the store’s digital signage screens.

“Mercifully, the abduction of a child is still a rare occurrence, but when it happens everyone is focussed on finding the child as quickly as possible,” said Michael Lumley, chair of the IBC Innovation Awards judging panel which is making this special award. “Amber Alert is a great use of technology in our industry which provides a real social service and we are delighted to make this award.”

Avatar: reality just gained another dimension

The award ceremony was ended with presentations of few actual scenes from James Cameroon’s new movie Avatar. From what we have seen, I have to admit this is an amazing experience. Not only the 3D issue was impressive, but the whole concept and story. It looks like reality just gained another dimension. I am looking forward to see the whole movie when it is published in December.

The IBC being a media oriented organization by its nature was aware of the copy & “sharing” capabilities of the participants and specifically requested not to copy any of the scenes in any way. So, if you want to take a look at what to expect, you can use the following trailer download link: http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/avatar/hd/ 

This is a two dimensions version only, however, impressive by itself. 

David Dekel

Endeavour Enterprises N.V.